When should I create Discussion groups?

How many students should be in a group?

How do I create groups for a Discussion exercise?

When should I create Discussion groups?

Before publishing the module, set up groups for that module. Random and frequent shuffling of groups ameliorates many common problems with group work.

Do not set up groups for all modules at the beginning of the semester. Why? Because later in the semester you do not want to have groups that contain students who have dropped.

How many students should be in a group?

For a discussion board exercise, groups of 6 to 8 are optimal. The rubric requires that each member of the group has at least two high quality responses and it requires all group members to respond to at least two of their peers.

How do I create groups for a Discussion exercise?

From the module list,

Click on the page containing a discussion. Discussions have Contribute as a subtitle along with this icon
Click Edit in the upper right.
Under Group Discussion,
- Check This is a Group Discussion.
- For Group Set,
  - either choose an existing group from the pull down menu OR
  - define a new group:
    - Click New Group Category and type the name of the group, e.g. Module 2 or Week 1.
    - For Group Structure: click the button next to Split students into; choose the number of groups. (We recommend 6-8 students in a group.)
Leave all other settings as they are pre-set, as shown below.

Options preset for Discussions

Click Save.

If you have successfully created groups for the discussion, you will see groups defined at the top of the discussion.

groups in a discussion