How do I allow students to choose their own groups?

If you wish to allow students to select the groups of their choice, you need to set up a Group Choice activity:

Set up the groups manually

If you haven’t already set up the groups that your students will choose from:

1. From the Navigation sidebar, click on Participants.
2. Then, click Settings (top right).
3. In the dropdown list select Groups.
4. Click Create Group.
5. In the next window complete the Group name and optionally Group description.
6. Click Save changes.

Repeat steps 4 to 6 depending on how many groups are required and you wish your students to choose from.

Note: Do not add any students to groups at this stage, since your students will choose the group they wish to be in later.

Set up the activity

1. In the course homepage, turn editing on.
2. Add an activity or resource.
3. Select Group Choice from the list and click Add.
4. Give a name to the activity, e.g. Fieldwork groups choice.
5. For Publish results, choose Do not publish results to students if you don’t want them to see what other students selected.
6. You can allow or prevent students from changing their group choice later by setting Allow choice to be updated to Yes or No respectively.
7. If you would like to see which students haven’t made a choice, select Yes for Show column for unanswered.
8. You can enable or disable the Limit the number of responses allowed if you wish only for a certain number of students to select each group.
9. You can specify that number under General limitation.
10. In the Groups section, choose the groups that you wish your students to choose from: click on the names of the groups on the left, then click Add group (middle) for the group to appear on the right. You can select to add multiple groups at once by holding Ctrl on a PC or Command on a Mac while clicking on the group names.
11. Optionally: you can apply time restrictions depending on when you would like your students to be able to make their group choice.
12. Save and display.