TABLE OF CONTENTS


What are Moodle Groups?

Moodle Groups is a feature that allows you to split your course into separate groups of students in Moodle. You can do this to make large classes feel a less overwhelming in group discussions/forums, break students into teams for group projects/study groups, or to streamline your communications or grading strategies. 


Where do I find Groups? You can find the Groups menu by visiting your course, clicking 'Participants' in your menu bar, and then clicking 'Enrolled users' to open the menu for this page. In this menu you will find Groups, Groupings, and the Group Overview page. If you continue through this article we will explore the functions of each of these pages.     



Groups 

Select 'Groups' from the menu on your Participants page and then "Create Group" or "Auto-Create Group" to get started.


You can assign or remove students from a group by clicking the group name and then "Add/remove users"  


Create groups: 

  1. Select Participants from Course navigation menu and from the dropdown menu that says "Enrolled Users" select 'Groups'.
  2. Click the 'Create group' button
  3. Add a group name. Optionally you can also add a description (displayed above the list of group members on the participants page), enrolment key and picture (displayed on the participants page and next to forum posts)
  4. Tick the box Enable group messaging if you wish to enage in group conversations. You will then be able to send group messages from the Quickmail. To see group messages that students send make sure you are in the group as well as your students.
  5. Click the 'Save changes' button
  6. Select the group to which you want to add participants, then click the 'Add/remove users' button
  7. In the "Potential members" list, select the users you want to add to the group. Multiple users may be selected using the Crtl key.
  8. Click the Add button to add the users to the group. You can also use this page to remove users later if needed.


Creating Groups Video:



Groupings

Groupings are sets of groups in your course. 


Why would I do this? Creating multiple sets of groups in your course (groupings) can teach students to adapt their collaboration/communication skills to work with diverse groups, teaches teamwork, and can offer a path to active engagement with course content by using groups to implement strategies like the Jigsaw method for group learning in online courses.


Creating Groupings Video:



Overview

The Groups Overview page gives you a nice summary of all of your Groups, Groupings, and Group Membership. This is a great page to view when reviewing and confirming that you have set up your groups correctly. 


Groups Overview Page Tour: 


Ideas for using groups in Moodle

  1. Group Projects - Assignments Submissions: Assign students to a group and then set an Assignment to use group mode to allow students to submit their work as a group.
  2. Streamline Grading: When students submit assignments as a group you can also grade them as a group. This can save you time and effort during your grading workflow. 
  3. Make Forums less Overwhelming: Set up a Q&A forum and post a fresh discussion topic assigned to each group. Discussions of 30 students each posting their own thread and two replies can get overwhelming and responses can become very repetitive. Consider breaking your class into groups of about 7-10, giving each group a similar discussion prompt that is just slightly different, this will allow students to focus on discussion with a few class mates rather than being overwhelmed by large repetitive online discussions. 
  4. Specific Communication in Quickmail: Use Quickmail to message particular groups of students. You could use this to divide students by particular clinical sites, study/project groups, or other traits (CCP) that would drive you to want a more personalized communication strategy. 
  5. Protect Student Privacy using Restrict Access by Group: When a student needs an extension consider adding them to a group called "Extension" or "Special Access". When using restrict access by Name, other students will be able to see the student who received an extension, but if you make a private/not visible group and allow restricted access by that group, then you protect that students identity. 


How to edit an activity's group settings

You can identify group Assignments in your course by the icon that displays on the right side of the activity. In edit mode you can add group mode details from the quick access menu, but for more control add group settings from the "Edit Settings" screen instead. 

screenshot shows the quick activity menu in Moodle that displays group mode options


Group modes

There are three group modes

  • No groups - There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community
  • Separate groups - Each group can only see their own group, others are invisible.
  • Visible groups - Each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups. (The other groups' work is read-only.)

For example, enabling either separate or visible groups on an assignment drop-box enables staff to filter the student submissions to see only those from a particular tutor group. With visible groups, students can see which other groups are doing the same activities as they are; with separate groups, they do not know which other groups are doing the same activities.


Using groups with discussion forums allow teachers to restrict interaction between students. Separate groups mean only students in the same group can see and participate in discussions within a particular forum. Visible groups allow students to see other group's discussions, but only participate in their own group's discussions.


To learn more, see the Moodle Groups Moodle Docs page.