Discussions Board Groups

You can create student Groups either before or after setting up the discussion board. If you prefer to create the Groups first, follow these steps:

1. In the left-hand Course Navigation menu, click People.
2. Click the blue button that says + Group Set in the top-right corner.
3. Enter a name for the Group Set that corresponds to the assignment (for example, Week 2 Discussion Sections). A Group Set is a collection of Groups that Canvas uses to organize students.
4. Leave "Create groups later" selected from the dropdown menu, then click on the blue Save button.
5. Click on the newly created Group Set tab.
6. Click on the light gray + Group button to give each Group a clear name, such as Discussion Section 1, Discussion Section 2, and so on.

To get started, you need to create discussion board in your Canvas course. If you can't remember how to do this or haven't done this before, please follow the steps in this Canvas Guide.

Next, you'll need to set the dicussion board to be a Group Discussion by following these steps:

1. Open the Discussion, and click on the 3 vertical dots ⋮
2. Click on Edit, next to the pencil icon.

3. Scroll down until you see "This is a Group Discussion" next to a checkbox.

4. If you created your Group Set In Advance, select it from the drop-down menu. If you have not yet, you will be prompted to create a New Group Category at this point.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to click the blue Save button.

After creating your Group Set and Groups, you may manually or automatically (randomly) assign students to the Groups. If enrollment changes (students add or drop the course) you must assign the new students to a Group or they won’t be able to participate in the Group Discussion.

Manually Assigning Students
Return to the Group Set and click and drag student names listed from the "Unassigned Students" column into the appropriate Group, or click on the + symbol next to the students name to assign each student to a Group.

Automatically/Randomly Assigning Students
Open the Group Set, click on the 3 vertical dots ⋮ (next to +Group), and then click "Randomly Assign Students".