Understanding groups and groupings

The following scenario will demonstrate how to set up group discussion forums on your module.

One of the assessment task students have to complete on ART1000 is a group presentation. To help them communicate and plan their work, the tutors want to create a discussion forum for each group. The tutors need to:

1. Create groups and allocate members to each group
2. Create a grouping that is made up of all the groups
3. Create a discussion forum and release it to the grouping just created. As a result each group now has their own discussion forum.

How to create group discussions

The third step is to set up the activity and use the grouping set up to scale the activity. You can create a discussion forum and release it to the groups by editing the settings on the forum.

1. Under Common module settings select group mode. Chose Separate groups if you want students to only be able to see their own group forums or Visible groups if the students should be able to see other groups’ forums too.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the grouping
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and return to course

As a result, the 3 groups that made up the grouping now each have a discussion forum. These different forums appear once you access the activity. You can use the drop-down menu to select which forum you’d like to visit.

The grouping name is listed next to the forum’s title as a reminder.

Check membership

If you have any issues about a student not being able to see the activity, please check the student's enrollment into the appropriate group.

1. In the Settings block select Users and then Groups
2. Click on Overview
   
   
3. The groups, groupings and their membership is displayed on the page.
   
   

There are filter controls at the top so you can select the individual grouping you are interested in identifying, and the members within a group. These controls help you to quickly identify if the correct students can see the activity you have set up for them.