Don't Cancel That Class!

AboutClass Descriptions

Don’t Cancel That Class offers full-time and adjunct faculty members an alternative to canceling class. If you know that you need to be absent this semester, you can select from the menu of workshops listed below and a GCC faculty or staff member will come to your classroom and teach during your normal class period. Workshops scheduled through Don’t Cancel that Class will not count as an absence, but please contact your dean ahead of time if you need to miss more than one class period or have other questions.

Please plan ahead! You have the best chance of scheduling your top choice workshop if you submit the request form two weeks or more in advance. Instructors and students have also indicated that these workshops are most effective when:

  • Students are notified in advance about the change.
  • Workshop instructors drop-in ahead of time and are introduced by the professor.
  • Faculty share upcoming assignments or coursework with the workshop instructor so that the workshop content can be tailored to the class.
  • There is some curricular integration between the workshop and the course (for example, a forum prompt in Moodle reflecting on the workshop).

Not all classes are available in a given semester. Only currently available classes will be selectable below in the request form.

Academic Advising

Scholarship Essay Writing

The GCC Foundation offers more than 50 awards and scholarships to GCC students annually, and all applications require at least one essay. This workshop will focus on Foundation scholarships, but students will learn strategies and tips that will help them write any personal statement.

Academic Advising

Stop Procrastinating — Academic advising staff

Do you find yourself pulling all-nighters to write papers or cram for exams? Do deadlines seem to spring out of nowhere and derail you? Do you feel overwhelmed, like you’re scrambling just to keep up with everything? Come to this workshop to explore tools and strategies for taking charge of your semester. Learn how to balance your responsibilities, cut down on procrastination, and create time to relax without the guilt!

Academic Advising

Study Smarter — Academic advising staff

Good students don’t just study hard; they study well! Do you ever find yourself unsure exactly HOW you should study? Or feel like the amount of time you spend studying and your grades you earn don’t line up? Then this workshop is for you! We’ll teach you how to best use your study time and share techniques for effectively learning new material.

Academic Advising

Take Better Notes — Academic advising staff

Taking notes in class or while doing homework can be tricky. Ever look at your class notes days or weeks after writing them and have no idea what you meant? Or worry that you’ve missed important points during class? This workshop will give you some strategies that will help you become a better note-taker so you can stay focused in class and understand what you wrote down later. We’ll offer tips for all kinds of classes – even Math!

Academic Advising

Transfer 101 — Shane Clark

GCC can be an incredible gateway to a higher degree, and with hundreds of guaranteed transfer agreements for GCC graduates, students really can go from GCC to anywhere. This workshop takes students through the basic steps in the transfer process, how to explore transfer options, and how to take advantage of our transfer agreements.

Career Services

Career Assessments for Insights & Action Planning — Shannon Doran

This will introduce students to career assessments, which are one of many tools people can use to gain more clarity about their career options and career/education path. Students will take a short career assessment, then will be guided on how to interpret results and transform results into new questions as well as career development action plans.

Career Services

How to Identify & Increase Your Marketable Skill Development — Shannon Doran

This will introduce students to a series of steps that can be taken and resources that can be used to identify: current skills; what skills employers are looking for; and current skill gaps. More importantly, we’ll explore how to make a plan to build your “skills toolbox” during and outside of your time at GCC.

Career Services

Introduction to Labor Market Information (LMI) Research — Shannon Doran

This lightly interactive webinar/class will help students become savvy users of labor market information (LMI), so they will be able to make more informed career and therefore education path decisions. Students will also be introduced to a variety of labor market and occupation resource tools included in the GCC Career Services website.

Career Services

Introduction to Network Pitches (a.k.a. Elevator Speeches) — Shannon Doran

This will provide an overview of professional networking strategies and resources, as well as a more in depth exploration of what is commonly referred to as an “elevator speech” or “networking pitch" -- 30-second to 2-minute introductions to help people understand: who you are (to them); what your main interests, goals, and/or assets are; and what sorts of information or opportunities you are currently seeking and/or offering.  Time allowing: Students will start drafting a networking pitch and start practicing their new networking pitch(es) with each other.  The relationship between a networking pitch, interview process, resume, and cover letter will also be discussed.

Career Services

Introduction to Students’ free Handshake account — Shannon Doran

This class/webinar includes an introduction to Handshake, as well as an opportunity for students to start using this powerful career management, job search, and networking tool.  The Handshake platform is the number one way that U.S. college students find jobs and internships.

Career Services

SMART Career Goal-Setting for Action Planning for Success — Shannon Doran

This will expand students’ perspectives about how career development planning can be used to increase growth and achieve goals during their time at GCC and throughout their lives. Students will be introduced to career planning tools and strategies proven to help people achieve their goals: writing down SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely or Time-oriented) goals; scheduling action steps; creating benchmarks for progress; and visualizing success. Time allowing: Students will start customizing one of the GCC Career Success Checklists or drafting a short-term career development action plan from scratch during the class.

Greenhouse and Grounds

Tour of GCC Outdoor Growing Spaces — Tony Reiber

Tour GCC's outdoor growing spaces. This workshop is weather dependent and is best selected in later spring or early-mid fall. Because this requires students to traverse uneven ground, it may not be a good option for students with mobility issues. May be offered Wednesday mornings or Fridays.

Inclusion and Diversity

Language & Pronouns & Gender Diversity — Liza Harrington and Kate Walker

This interactive workshop addresses gender pronouns and language to cultivate an inclusive environment for the trans and non-binary community at GCC. The purpose of the workshop is to inform why respecting gender identities matter, to familiarize students with trans-inclusive and gender-neutral language, and to engage students in interactive exercises where they will practice asking for and using various gender pronouns. In addition to this, the workshop will equip students with the tools to hold themselves and others accountable.

Leadership

Collaborative Multidisciplinary Arts — Sam Woods

What happens when you share ideas and different skills? These creative collaborations are applicable for problem solving across disciplines and for developing inquisitive skills for research. Engineers and artists learn to work the problem as part of their training. This is a good exercise for everyone and helps build community collaborative skills: What do we have at hand to tackle this question? What happens when we turn it over and look at it and build it from different perspectives?

Leadership

Creating Communities of Mattering — Judy Raper

It's no secret that when individuals feel a sense of belonging in the communities in which they work, live and learn they are able to reach their full potential and thrive emotionally and socially.  In this workshop we explore theory proposed by Nancy Schlosberg regarding strategies for creating communities where people feel as if they matter and the tremendous cost of marginalizing individuals.  An exercise that prompts us to reflect on communities we have thrived in and those we have struggled in culminates in the development of group strategies to create and participate in communities of mattering.

Leadership

Media Literacy — Sam Woods

A workshop focused on assessing sources of news and developing critical thinking skills relative to assessing sources of information and related ethical responsibilities.

This can be adapted to subject areas of the course and specific areas of focus prompted by the instructor. Generally, this workshop will involve critical thinking and reading skills for vetting news sources, digging into funding sources for publications, analyzing perspectives and developing context within an area of inquiry to assess bias. We will discuss and practice nurturing inquisitive skills and how to develop a line of questioning for vetting sources.

Leadership

Project Management and Time Travel — Sam Woods

What happens when you develop systems to organize information and schedule blocks of time for uninterrupted work? It feels good.

Using a project management framework to organize time and attention, as well as examination of distractions, this workshop will combine skills coaching on tools like Google calendar and Google sheets (and potentially Airtable and Trello), with conceptual practice in systems thinking, problem solving, indexing, and intentional focus.

This is adaptable to personal styles and intended to reduce stress and improve work quality. Applicable to every discipline.

Library

GCC Tech Tools — Library staff

This workshop, for developmental classes and 100-level classes, will give students hands-on practice using the various tools available through their GCC account, including Google Drive and Moodle, along with strategies for how to use these tools effectively. This workshop must take place in a computer classroom.

Library

Online privacy and security — Library staff

This workshop will help students identify risks to their data security and present them with tools they can use to protect themselves from identity theft and hacking. The workshop content can be adapted to address risks faced by specific populations, such as domestic violence survivors or undocumented immigrants.

Library

Scholarship and citation — Library staff

Using assignments or content from the course in which this workshop occurs, students will discuss the scholarly process and take part in hands-on activities that will help them decide when citations are needed in order to correctly integrate information in their creations.

Library

Strategies for Reading Scholarly Articles — Library staff

Students will work in small groups to dissect academic, scholarly journal articles relevant to the field of study for this course and develop a strategy for reading scholarly literature. This activity uses a worksheet which can be collected and evaluated or graded.

Library

Tailored Instruction Around a Research Assignment — Library staff

This workshop requires an initial consultation with one of the GCC librarians, in which we talk about the specifics of the assignment including the timeline for it and your students' research needs.

Peer Tutoring

Reading & Note-taking & Anticipating Test Questions — Cindy Snow

This workshop reviews the reading and study strategy SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite, review), as well as strategies that utilize multiple learning styles. If you provide a reading assignment that students haven't done yet, we'll use it to practice these strategies during class time.

Peer Tutoring

Study Strategies: Video and Discussion

A Peer Tutoring staff member and one or two tutors will come to your class, show a portion of a prerecorded video, and lead a discussion. The video is a panel discussion of peer tutors talking about study strategies, including time management, self-care, organization, breaking down assignments into doable chunks, etc. Remote or in-person; dependent on tutor availability.

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