Creating and Using Groups in Moodle

Summary

Groups have a variety of uses in Moodle. It can provide a collaborative learning environment, break up a combined course roster into the invidividual courses, or provide exclusive content to some of the students. 

Understanding Groups and Groupings

A group in Moodle is a selection of students. This may be for a group project, a specific section in a combined course, or randomized. Commonly several groups are created to portion every student into one of the various groups. While rare cases do exist where a student should be left out of any group, it is encouraged for every student to be part of a group when groups are used. This, at a minimum, shows intentionality for which group the student should exist if an issue arises. 

There are times when students need to belong to several groups. Perhaps there are two group projects during a course, and an intentional decision has been made where the students should not work with the same other students twice. When students exist in multiple groups, groupings need to be used. A grouping will define to Moodle which groups go together. Per the previous example, it may be that the first half groups are titled Group 1, Group 2, etc., and our second half groups are titled Group A, Group B, etc. When the Moodle activity is told that groups are being used, Moodle will see that students are in multiple groups and be unsure how to proceed. By creating a grouping defining all Group # together, Moodle will then be able to understand that the Group # apply.

Creating Groups