Use Canvas Groups for Discussion Sections

You can use the Groups tool in Canvas to organize group discussion sections. The following article walks through the steps to create group sets, add and name groups, and assign students to groups.

Group Sets house one or more Groups.

1. Click People in the Course Navigation menu.
2. Click + Group Set.
3. Enter a group set name in the Group Set Name box. (i.e. Discussion Sections).
4. Keep I’ll create groups manually selected, then hit Save.
5. Click on your Group Set tab and click + Group to add groups to the group set.
1. Depending on how many sections you would like to make, you will create that many groups. Name the groups: i.e., Discussion Section 01.

You must enable the Group Discussion setting when creating a new discussion or updating an existing discussion.

1. In Course Navigation, click the Discussions link.
2. Depending on if you are creating or editing a discussion, click + Discussion or Edit the discussion assignment.
3. Scroll to the Group Discussion setting, select This is a Group Discussion and then select Discussion Sections (or whatever you’ve named the group set) from the drop-down menu.
1. Note: if you have not created any group sets or groups, you will be prompted to create a New Group Category at this point.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to click Save.

After creating your group set and groups, you may manually or automatically (randomly) assign students to the groups. If enrollment changes (students add or drop the course) you must assign the new students to a group or they won’t be able to participate in the discussion section groups.

Return to the Group Set and click and drag student names listed from the Unassigned Students column into the appropriate group, or click on the + symbol next to the students name to assign each student to a group.

Randomly Assign

Open the Group Set and click the options menu and then click Randomly Assign Students.

Combined Course Note: Our department has worked with the Office of the Registrar regarding combined classes when it comes to FERPA. Unless the sections/courses you are merging are officially cross-listed by Bradley University, there are certain measures that will need to be taken in order to comply with FERPA Law. This includes things like disabling the People tool, not allowing students to join their own groups, assigning discussions to each individual section, etc. Additional information on ensuring FERPA compliance for combined courses can be found here.