Alex D'AdamoTo start, we’ll need to create a “group set” called Sections, which will automatically add each student to the appropriate group for their section.
- Open the People area of your Canvas course.
- Select the blue “+ Group Set” button in the top right corner.
- Type “Sections” for the Group Set Name.
- Under Group Structure, select “Split students by number of groups” and then set the number of groups to be equal to the number of sections in your course.
- IMPORTANT: SELECT THE CHECKBOX to “Require group members to be in the same section.”
- Do not check the boxes for “Allow self sign-up” or “Automatically assign a student group leader.”
- Select the blue “Save” button.
- Optional: Once the groups are created, use the three dots next to each group to name the group the section of the course. Do not set a group membership limit. If you make changes, select the blue “Save” button.
Now that the groups are created, we need to indicate they should be group discussions by section.
- Open the Discussions area of your Canvas course.
- Decide whether to create a new discussion or edit an existing discussion (using “Edit” under the three dots next to a discussion, shown below).
- In the discussion settings, check the box to indicate “This is a Group Discussion,” then for the Group Set, choose “Sections.”
If you don’t need to set different due dates for the discussion per section, select the blue “Save” button in the bottom right. You’re all set!
If you need to set different due dates for the discussion per section:
- Open the edit area for the assignment, discussion, or quiz that you want to set the due date for.
- Scroll down to the “Assign to:” area and select the gray “+ Assign To” button.
- In the “Start typing to search…” area, click and select the first section of your course. Fill out the “Due Date” and “Time” boxes for that section, and optionally indicate “Available from” and “Until” times.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the remaining sections of the course that need a due date assigned.
- Select the blue “Save” button in the bottom right. You’re all set!
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