Creating Groups

To use groups in your course, you first need to create the groups. NOTE: you can create many groups and use them separately for different activities. To do so requires using Groupings, which is not covered in this tutorial. Here’s how to create groups:

Step 1: Open your course in Moodle and click on the Participants link from the course dashboard:

Step 2: Select Groups from the top left dropdown menu on the Participants page:

Step 3: To create your groups, click Create group from below the Groups box. You’ll create each group one at a time by naming the group and clicking Save changes. Continue until all of your desired groups have been created:

Step 4: To add users to a group, click the Add/remove users button under the Members of area:

Step 5: Click a user to select them and then click the Add button to add them to the group or select multiple users by holding down the ctrl key while selecting and then click the Add button to add the selected users to the group. Make sure you, as an instructor, add yourself to each group you create:

Step 5: When finished, click the Back to groups button at the bottom left.

Group Settings

You can use a Group at two levels within your course, the course level or at the individual activity level.

Course Level Settings

If you plan to use groups for all your activities in the course, then you can set your Group mode at the course level. To set this:

Step 1: Open your course in Moodle and click on the Settings link from the course dashboard:

Step 2: Scroll down to the Groups settings and using the drop down menu for Group mode, select if you want separate or visible groups. You can also select if you want to Force group mode or make it optional

• Separate groups – each group member can only see their own group, others are invisible
• Visible groups – each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups

Step 3: When finished, click the Save and Display button at the bottom of the page.

Activity Level Settings

If you don’t want to use groups for all your course activities, then you don’t have to set groups at the course level. You can set it per activity. From within your course in Moodle:

Step 1: Toggle Edit mode to ON, then for the activity you want to edit the group setting for, click Edit, and select Edit settings.

Step 2: Scroll down to the Common module settings, and using the Group mode drop down menu, select whether you want Separate or Visible groups:

Step 3: When finished, click the Save and return to course button at the bottom.

Note: If you are creating a new activity just remember to set the Group mode if you want your groups applied.

Assignment Settings

If you are using groups for assignments, you have the ability to set whether you want students to submit their work as a group.

To begin, open your course in Moodle and toggle Edit mode to ON.

Students submit in groups

If enabled (yes), a group submission will be shared among group members and all members of the group will see each other’s changes to the submission. To use this setting:

Step 1: Click the Edit link to the right of the assignment and then click Edit settings.

Step 2: Under Group submission settings, use the drop down menus for these settings to set them to yes or no:

Step 3: When finished, click the Save and return to course button at the bottom.

Require all group members submit

If enabled (yes), all members of the group must click the submit button for the assignment before the group submission will be considered submitted. If disabled (no), the group submission will be considered as submitted as soon as any member of the group clicks the submit button. To use this setting:

Step 1: Click the Edit link to the right of the assignment and then click Edit settings.

Step 2: Under Submission settings, using the drop-down menu set Require students click submit button to Yes:

Step 3: Under Group submission settings, using the drop-down menu set Students submit in groups to Yes and Require all group members submit to Yes:

Step 4: When finished, click the Save and return to course button at the bottom.

For Moodle help, contact the NMC Technology Helpdesk at 231-995-3020