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  4. Moodle
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Allow Group Selection in Moodle

Overview

Sometimes you want to allow students to choose which group they will join for group work purposes in Moodle. This page tells you how to create a Group Self-Selection activity, and how to change group memberships once students have made their selections.

 

When to use

Use group self-selection when you want to give students the freedom to decide their own group memberships.

Benefits

Group self-selection helps students take responsibility for establishing group dynamics from the outset, by selecting which group they will work best with. This is a flexible tool that allows you to adjust groups once students have made their selections, if you can see a better way to arrange them.

Always explain your changes to your students.

Guide

Getting started

Before you create a group self-selection activity, auto-create some groups within a grouping. Then return to this page to create the activity.

Step by step instructions

  • Create a Group self-selection activity
  • Change groups after students have selected

Create a group self-selection activity

  1. On the course home page, click Turn editing on.

    Turn editing on button
     
  2. In the appropriate section, click Add an activity or resource, select Group self-selection in the pop-up list and click Add.

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  3. On the Adding a new Group self-selection page, under General:
    • Enter a Name for the activity.
    • Enter an Description, containing instructions for students.
    • Apply any date restrictions on the selection.
    • To limit group selection to a single grouping (e.g. the grouping you created before beginning this procedure), select that grouping's name from the Select groups from grouping drop-down list.
    • Set the Min members per group and Max members per group.
    • To limit the number of groups a student can participate in, set Maximum number of groups to participate in.

      image-20211110150657-4
  4. Under General permissions, you can decide what permissions participants will have, such as being able to join, leave and create groups.

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  5. To assign supervisors to groups, under the Miscellaneous settings there is a button to assign supervisors to groups and you can define the role for supervisors.

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  6. Under Common module settings:
    • Set the Availability: the activity can be hidden from students, shown on the course page, or hidden from the course page but still available to students.
    • Select the appropriate Group mode. Separate groups keeps group activities private within each group; Visible groups allows groups to see each other's work.
    • Set an ID number if you needed for mark calculation purposes.
    • Click Add group/grouping access restriction to add an access restriction where the student needs to belong to the grouping to access the activity.

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  7. Complete the Restrict access and Activity completion sections as relevant and click Save and display.

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  8. On the activity's home page, click the Limits tab.

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  9. On the Limits page, you can enter the maximum number of members on a per-group basis and then click Save changes.

    "

Change groups after students have selected

To make changes to groups after students have made their selections:

  1. Click the link for the group self-selection activity.
  2. On the activity's home page, click Manage groups below the activity title.

    "
     
  3. The Groups page displays, where you can add and remove users from groups, as well as
    create, edit and delete groups.

Additional information

Further assistance

If you experience technical or other issues, consult the Where to get help page.

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Page last updated: Monday 13 March 2023