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D2L Mastery Microcredential
What are Groups?
What are Groups?
Groups in D2L are pretty much what you imagine them to be. You can use them to break students up into smaller units to work on projects and assignments, and even provide different groups with different materials (in conjunction with Restrictions, which we will take a look at later). The most beneficial use of D2L Groups, however, is with D2L Dropboxes, which you can set up such that only one group member need submit to the dropbox for the group. You can then grade it accordingly and have that grade automatically sent to the D2L Gradebook for those in that Group. It also provides you and your students with an easy-to-access list of who is in a group and easy contact information. Note that Groups are placed into "Group Categories". You can think of these as containers for the groups that you want to make.
How do I use Groups?
How do I use Groups?
When you create a Group, there are a number of things you can view from the Groups page. You can see the Group name, members, Group Dropboxes, and Group Discussions simply by clicking on the number in the appropriate row and column. You can also email a particular Group by clicking on the checkbox to the left of a group and selecting Email.
Using Groups
Using Groups
Go to the My Tools tab in the Course Navbar and select Groups.
Click on New Category in the upper-left, under Manage Groups.
Give the Group Category a name (ex, Groups for Project 1 or simply Project 1). It should be descriptive to the purpose of the groups you are about to make.
Choose an enrollment type:
# of Groups - No Auto Enrollments: Set the number of groups and manually add students to individual groups yourself
Groups of #: Set the number of students you want in each group. D2L will randomly assign students to each group as evenly as possible.
# of Groups: Set the number of groups that you want for the project. D2L will randomly assign students to each group as evenly as possible.
Groups of # - Self Enrollment: Set the max number of students allowed in each group and allow students to choose which groups to join. NOTE: D2L will automatically create as many groups as it needs to fit the number of students. Ex, a class with 20 students using this to put 4 students in each group, D2L will make 5 groups. Same class, but 3 students per group, D2L will make 7 groups.
# of Groups - Self Enrollment: Set the max number of groups and allow students to choose which groups to join, with no limit as to how many students will join each group.
Number of Groups, Capacity of # - Self Enrollment: You set both the number of groups and the max number of students allowed to join each group.
Once you are done, click Save. D2L will give you a pop-up basically saying that the process is not immediate and to come back to the groups tab in a moment or two.
Create a Group Dropbox
Create a Group Dropbox
**Make sure you have already created your D2L Groups before creating your Group Dropbox. While you can very easily just look at the group list and see which groups have/have not submitted based on the student, why not let D2L do that for you? Plus, this will allow you to quickly grade the assignment and publish that grade to the D2L Gradebook. No need to write the grade down on a pad of paper, consult the groups list, and then add it to the gradebook for those specific students.
You can do this on a New or Existing Dropbox.
Go to the Dropbox tab.
Click on New Folder or, for an existing Dropbox, the dropdown arrow to the right and click on Edit Folder.
Click on the Submission & Completion tab.
Find where it says Assignment Type and choose Group Assignment.
Then choose a Group Category (note: if you only have one Group in your course, that one will be chosen by default).
Then edit or add Dropbox information as needed/click on one of the Save options.
Create a Group Discussion
Create a Group Discussion
**Create your Groups first. Then make sure you create a Discussion Forum if you have not already. A group discussion forum can be useful if, for example, you have a topic that you want to discuss but may not have the time to allow students to break into groups during class. Instead, you can create a Group Discussion topic and have groups discuss it outside of class. During class, you can have students discuss what their group came up with.
Go to the Discussion tab in the Course Navbar
Either create a New Topic or edit an existing topic
For a Topic: Click on the blue New button in the upper-left and choose New Topic.
For an existing topic, click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the topic and choose Edit Topic in the menu that appears.
Under Topic Type, choose Group or section topic, everyone can access this topic but students only see threads from their own group or section.
Under Group or Section Category, choose which Group Category that you want to use. NOTE: if you leave it on Section in a typical D2L Course at Canisius, this basically allows all of your students to comment on the Topic and see all other students' comments too. In a Merged Course, however, you will have multiple sections, corresponding with the courses that were merged.
Finish editing the topic and/or click on Save.
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