Canvas: Creating Groups

This allows students in a group to sign up and join particular groups of their choice. Please follow the instructions below:

1. Click on the People link in your course menu.
2. On the top right of the People page, click +Group Set.
   
   
   
3. In the Create Group Set popup that appears, enter a name for the group.
4. Check the box next to Allow self sign-up. If you have multiple sections in your course, you can choose to make members of a group to be from the same section.
5. In the Group Structure section, set the number of groups you want and the maximum number of members in each group (optional).
6. To automatically assign a student group leader to each group, beside Leadership, click the checkbox. You also have the option to either set the first person to join as group leader or set a random student as group leader.
7. When finished with Create Group Set, click on the blue Save button.
   
   
   
8. Unassigned students will show up on the left side of the page as shown. To view group membership, at left of each group name click the triangle. The triangle expands or collapses the group's membership list. 
   
   

   Note: Students can move themselves from one group to another as long as the self-sign up option is enabled. For best practice purposes, inform the students the self sign-up option is available for a time period and turn it off after the deadline. To make these changes, please see Section 4 of this guide.

Manually Assigned Groups

If your course has a small number of students and you wish to create groups on your own (assigning members by yourself), the instructions are as follows:

1. Click on the People link in your course menu.
2. On the top right of the People page, click +Group Set.
   
   
   
3. In the Create Group Set popup that appears, enter a name for the group and leave the Allow self sign-up option unchecked.
4. Under the Group Structure section, click I’ll create groups manually.
5. Click Save. The popup closes and your new group set appears.
   
   
   
6. Under the group set you have just created, click on the grey + Group button to add new groups.
   
   
   
7. In the popup that appears, add a Group Name.
8. Optionally, you can limit the number of people in this group.
9. After you have filled out these options, click Save.
   
   
   
10. Repeat steps 6-9 for as many groups as needed.
11. You can either drag and drop students from the Unassigned Students section into a group, or click the + next to a student name, then select the group to add that student to.
    

Randomly Assigned Groups

1. Click on the People link in your course menu.
2. On the top right of the People page, click +Group Set. 
   
   
   
3. Give your group set a name and leave the Allow self sign-up option unchecked.
4. Under the Group Structure section, you can select either:
   1. Split Students into __ groups, and enter the number of groups you wish to create. 
   2. Split the students into groups of __ students per group, and enter the number of students for each group.
   3. You can optionally Require group members to be in the same section.
5. (Optional) Assign a group leader, as outlined in tab 1 above.
6. Once you click Save, the groups will be automatically generated.
   

Editing Groups or Groups Sets

To edit group set information/setting for all three scenarios, click on the options menu (three dots) as shown below:

Options will vary based on the type of group set.