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Group Self-Selection

Why Do This

The Group Self-Selection tool allows students to pick their own group, either by choosing from a selection of groups or creating their own group. If you are having students choose from a set of groups, you must create the Groups and Grouping first. Even if you are having students create their own groups, if you are going to have multiple sets of groups in a course, you should create the Grouping for the groups first. See our help guide on Creating Groups and Groupings.

Setup Group Self-Selection

1. While on your course homepage, click on the desired topic in the Contents area.

2. Once viewing the topic/module where you want the Group Self-Selection activity, click on "Create learning activity" link in the lower left.

3. In the pop-up window select “Group self-selection."

4. Enter the Name of the activity and a brief Description or instructions (if necessary).

5. Enable the Open From and Open Until dates and times if you want to limit when students can select/create their groups.

6. For “Select groups from grouping” choose the appropriate Grouping from the drop down (you must have created the Grouping first). Only choose “All groups” if this will be the only set of groups in the course.

7. Set the minimum number of members per group.

8. Set the maximum number of members per group.

9. Set the maximum number of groups an individual student can be a member of. Most likely you will keep this at 1.

10. In the General Permissions section, if you don’t want students to be able to create their own groups, uncheck the box for “Students can create groups” which will gray out the next three settings. Otherwise, we recommend you leave the defaults.

11. In the Miscellaneous Settings section we recommend you leave the defaults.

12. Scroll to the bottom and either click “Save and return to course” to return to your course homepage or “Save and display” to view the Group Self-Selection activity.

Student view

Students will be able to see the description (if applicable), Open Until date and time (if applicable), and the list of groups with the group names, descriptions, current member count, and current members.  To join a group, a student would click the "Become member of" button for that group. If the maximum number of members for a group has been reached, students will not be able to become a member of that group until someone leaves. A student can click "Leave group" to leave a group and join another. If allowed, students can also create a new group.