Course Site - Groups

Why groups are useful

Groups are a great way to help instructors manage larger classes inside a single (Moodle) course site. Groups can especially be helpful in courses where multiple sections of students are linked together. Using groups allows teachers to filter activities and the gradebook one section (group) at a time; and/or restrict access based on group membership to a particular activity, resource, or topic section so that only the students with a given group membership can see it. Groups can be used at both the course level and activity level.

One important detail to remember is that using a Group Mode allows the exact same activity or resource to be presented to groups in a course for smaller working groups. For example, you can have different due dates for each group in the same assignment; or make the same quiz available at different times for each group. This helps keep your gradebook clean and organized and also avoids the need to duplicate large activities in a single course.

Please submit a ticket if you have a large combined course with sub-sections, an Instructional technologist can auto-create groups based on these sections.

Groups only work with native Course Site ("Moodle") assignments. You can't use the group functionality with integrations such as Turnitin or Google Assignments.

Additional information and documentation on Groups are available for Moodle (4.1) directly.

1. Create Groups

To view/edit/create groups, go to your Course Site course. Select Participants from Course navigation and from the dropdown select Groups.

Click the Create group button.

Provide group information. Group name is required but the remaining fields are optional.
You might want to make note of the Group messaging option which, when enabled, allows members of the group to send messages to other members of the group via the Moodle messaging feature.

2. Activate Group Settings

Group modes can be set at two levels:

Course level - setting a group mode at the course level sets the selected group mode as the default mode for all activities within your course. This is useful if you are sure that you want to use groups for most or all of your course activities.
Activity level - each activity that supports groups can also be set to a desired group mode. Please note, if you set "Force group mode" (found in Settings > Groups) to Yes (default in all courses is No), then you will not be able to edit the group mode at the activity level. It is also important to note that some activities handle groups a little differently, so be sure to read the tooltips (identified by the blue question marks) in the different activities to make sure it is the behavior you expect.

3. Apply Group Filters and Restrictions

Using groups filter

Once you have groups turned on for an activity and/or gradebook, you can now filter submisstions/students/grades by group using the groups filter that appears. Simply select the group you wish to view from the drop-down menu.

Using Groups to Restrict Access to Content

4. Grading Group Assignments

Assignments can be set up in Course Site so that students can submit, and be graded, individually or as a group.