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About encouraging group work
About encouraging group work
Online learning can tend to be a solitary act, with the learners engaging with the course in isolation. It's important to encourage peer interactions even if it is mediated by technology. You can use Brightspace to group students together so they can engage and collaborate on the coursework at their own pace.
Setting up groups from the classlist
Setting up groups from the classlist
Dividing a large class into smaller groups can help you introduce group work or collaboration between your students, or just help you manage a large group better. You can do this using the Groups tool.
Click on Groups from the course navbar. This will open the Manage Groups page
Click on New Category, which will open up the Category Information section and allow you to fill in the settings you want.
Give the Category a name and a description- is it a discussion group? Is it for research teams? Is it a project group for the rest of the term?
Determine how the groups will be created through the Enrollment Type dropdown menu. There are different settings you can use to determine how the groups will be structured, from the number of groups to how students are grouped together.
# of Groups, no Auto Enrollment - This option allows you to set the total number of groups to be made and also allows you to manually allocate the students to each group.
Groups of # - Use this option to automatically allocate students to groups based on the maximum number of students you want in a group. (ex. Automatically group together a class of 200 into groups of 5)
# of Groups - Brightspace will automatically allocate students to the total number of groups that you set.
Groups of # - Self Enrollment - This option allows you to set the maximum number of students you want per group. Students are then allowed to enroll themselves into the group of their choice.
# of Groups - Self Enrollment - Use this option to determine the total amount of groups you want to create and allow students to enroll themselves into the group of their choice.
# of Groups, Capacity of # - Self Enrollment - This option allows you to set the total number of groups, the maximum number of students per group, and allow students to self-organize and enroll themselves in a group of their choice.
Single user, member-specific groups - This option creates a single group per student, if you want to work with blogs/journals.
Advanced Properties - You can modify the above options further using Advanced Properties.
Auto-Enroll New Users will automatically assign students who joined the class after groups were made, starting with the groups with the fewest members.
Randomise Users in Groups will randomly allocate students to groups - allocation will follow an alphabetical order by default.
The Expiry Data option sets a deadline for enrollment into groups (if you used the Self Enrollment options). Use this in conjunction with Allocate unenrolled users to automatically assign students who did not enroll into random groups.
To set up the Groups for the purpose of having group assignments, go to the Advanced Options at the bottom of the page.
Check the Set Up Assignments. You can now select what kind of assignment you are planning to give this group. Assignment types are File Submission, Text Submission, On Paper Submission and Observe in Person.
Creating group assignments
Creating group assignments
Encouraging collaboration among students can be extra challenging when physical interactions are not possible. Although it is still impossible to replace these complex interactions, BrightSpace allows virtual collaboration through the Group Assignments option. With this feature, organizing group activities are easier and more convenient. Here’s how:
Make sure that you read Setting group from Classlist first and set up through these simple steps:
Go to the Course and click the Content from the navigation bar.
Select the Unit or Lesson in which you want to place your Assignment.
From there, click Create New. There will be a pop up window of all the possible Content Types that you can place.
Choose Assignment. You can start adding the name and instructions for your Assignment in this part.
Once you’ve set up your assignment and the groupings from Classlist, the next part is very easy!
Go to Edit Assignment and choose the Properties Tab.
Scroll down and you’ll see the Assignment Type where you’ll either choose Individual or Group. Individual types are assignments submitted and assessed per student, while Group types are assignments done and assessed per group. Any member of the group can do a submission. By default, when no Groups within the Classlist have been set up, only the Individual Type can be chosen.
Click Save and Close.
Brightspace Guides: DURING Classes
Brightspace Guides: DURING Classes
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