What is the Group Choice Plugin?

The Group Choice plugin allows teachers to create an activity where students choose a group, from a pre-defined list of groups. The teacher can set both the groups that students can choose from and the maximum number of students allowed in the group. When combined with course restrictions, this can be extremely useful if you want students to choose between multiple assignment options or select from different learning modules.

How Do I Use the Group Choice Plugin?

Step 01: Turn Editing On

Click the gear in the upper right-hand corner of your online course and select Turn Editing on from the menu.

Step 02: Navigate to the Groups Page

A) Select Participants from the left-hand menu, B) click the gear from the right-hand menu on the page that appears, and C) select Groups.

Note: If you already have the appropriate groups created, skip to Step 04.

Step 03: Create the Groups

Click Create Group. 

After you click Create Group, a screen will appear where you can enter the name of your group. The Group name is the only required field here, but you may want to enter a Group description so students can easily read a description of what this group is. When you are done, click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Note: Repeat Step 03 for each group you wish to create.

Step 04: Add Group Choice as an Activity

From the Add an Activity… menu, select Group Choice where you like to add the activity.

Step 05: Name the Group Choice and Enter a Description

In the screen that appears, under General enter the Group choice name and a brief description of what you want students to do. 

Step 06: Set Miscellaneous Settings

Below the General section, you will find Miscellaneous settings.

Set Publish results to Do not Publish to Students, unless you have a reason to show students all results.

Decide if you want students to be able to change which group they pick. This is set using the Allow choice to be update option.

Decide if you want to limit the number of responses. This can be used to set a cap for the number of students in a particular group. If you wish to enable this, set Limit the number of responses allowed to enable, enter the cap under General limitation, and click Apply to all groups.

Note: If you want different limits for each group, you can set that individually in the next step.

Step 07: Select Groups

Below the Miscellaneous settings section, you will find Groups.

From the Available Groups menu on the left, select the groups you wish for students to choose from, then hit Add Groups.

Note: You can select more than one group at a time by holding CTRL when you click.

If you want to limit the number of students in a particular group, click on that group in the Selected Groups menu on the right and enter the limit in the space provided.

Step 08: Additional Options

Below the Groups section, you will find several more sections that you may wish to configure.

If you only want students to have the option to choose groups during a specific time period, set that time period in the Restrict answering to this time period section.

If you want to hide this activity or change the group mode, do so under Common Module Settings.

If you want to set up a restriction or pre-condition for using this group choice, set those restrictions under Restrict access.

If you want to turn activity completion on, do so from the Activity Completion section.

After you select the optional items you wish to use, click Save and display to view your new Group Choice.

Step 09: Select a Group (Student View)

When a student views the Group Choice, he/she will be presented with the list of groups you selected. When he/she selects a group and clicks Save my choice, he/she will be automatically added to the group.

Step 10: Set on Restrictions for Assignments/Activities

If you are simply using the Group Choice to let students pick a group, then you are done; however, if you want an assignment (or another activity) to connect to the choice, you need to add a restriction to that assignment.

Navigate to activity you want to connect to the group choice in your course and click on Edit then Edit Settings.

After the assignment/quiz/etc. settings screen opens, scroll down to the Restrict Access section and click Add restriction… to add the restriction.

From the menu that appears, select Group.

By selecting Group, you will be presented with a dropdown menu where you can select the group you wish to connect to this activity. Select the appropriate group from the list.

Note: If you want the activity to be completely invisible to students, unless they have selected the group from the Group Choice, click the eye next to the dropdown list.

Finally, Click Save and return to course to save the changes to your activity.