---
title: "Groups: Create a Group of Students in a Course"
canonical: "https://helpcentre.macewan.ca/space/ETS/2621833464/Groups%3A%20Create%20a%20Group%20of%20Students%20in%20a%20Course"
format: markdown
---
**AUDIENCE: ****FACULTY**** | ****STAFF**
## **Groups Overview**
Group mode gives an instructor some options for student engagement within your course. Here is an overview of why you might want to use Groups in your mêskanâs course shell:
- You are a teacher in a course where you have several sections of the same class, and you want to filter your activities and gradebook so you only see one class at a time.
- You are a teacher sharing a course with other teachers, and you want to filter your activities and gradebook so you don’t see the students from your colleagues’ classes.
- You want to incorporate targeted group activity into your coursework and allocate a particular activity, resource, or topic section to just one class or set of users, and you don’t want others to see it.
## Group levels
**Course level**:** **Groups are set at the course level through the course settings and become the default for all activities created in the course. By default, every course at MacEwan places all registered students in a given course into a cohort group.
**Activity level**: Groups are created at the course level. As long as **Group mode** is not **forced** in course-level settings, groups can be set under any activity type that supports group work, under **Common module settings.** These groups will work only for that activity.
If group mode is forced at the course level, the course groups will override groups created at the activity level.
## Adding and editing groups
1. Access group settings by selecting **Participants** from the **menu.**
2. Select **Groups** from the menu titled **Enrolled users**.
## Creating groups
There are several methods to create groups at the course level.
### Method 1: Create a group manually
1. From the **Groups** editing page, Course name > Participants > Groups, and select **Create group**.
2. On the next screen, enter a name for your group. If you want the students to enrol in a group manually, you can set an enrolment key for students to enter in the box adjacent to **Enrolment key**; this will restrict access to the group to those with the key. By clicking on the **Group membership visibility** drop-down, you can choose from four options: **Visible to everyone**, **Only visible to members**, **Only see own membership** and **Hidden**. You can identify the group with a picture by uploading a picture in the box adjacent to **New Picture**. When finished, select **SAVE CHANGES**.
3. On the next screen, select the group you want to populate and click **Add/remove users.**
4. Choose the students you wish to add to the selected group and click **Add**. To select more than one user at a time, hold down the control key (Mac: Command key). To remove users, highlight the user(s) you wish to remove from the list on the left and click **Remove**. This can be done at any time.
### Method 2: Auto-create groups
1. From the **Groups** editing page, Course name > Users > Groups, and select **Auto-create groups**.
2. Choose the naming scheme in the box adjacent to **Naming scheme**. Using **@** will create groups with letters, e.g., Group A, Group B, etc. Using # will create groups with numbers, e.g., Group 1, Group 2, etc. In the drop-down menu adjacent to **Auto create based on**,** **select the behaviour you want for the box adjacent to **Group/messaging count**. Selecting **Members per group** will generate groups of the specified number, and selecting **member count** will create groups based on specified size. The example below creates groups of 2.
3. Leave **Student **as the selected role unless you want instructors in the groups. In the drop-down adjacent to **Allocate members,** choose how you would like users allocated. To prevent uneven groupings, click the box next to **Prevent last small group**.
4. To create a new grouping with these automatically created groups, select **New grouping** from the drop-down menu. Give the grouping a name in the box **Grouping name**. If you have enabled **Group submission settings **in the assignment for which these groups are for, you **must** create a grouping (see explanation below). Click submit when finished.
5. You can review and edit the grouping you created in this way by navigating to Course name / Participants / Groupings. Information on how to create groupings is outlined in the Creating Groupings section of this tutorial.
## Important activity settings
When you are inside the assignment activity, the settings below are the ones you will need to pay attention to use group projects in your course.
### Group submission settings
If you select** Yes**, **Students submit in groups**, this will enable the ability to mark the assignment in groups. When you grade any student in a particular group, the mark will be automatically applied to **all** members of that group. If you do not have this setting enabled, you will need to enter grades for each student manually, even if they have not submitted anything. If you enable this setting, you will have to place the groups for the assignment into a grouping.
Identify the Grouping you wish to use in the drop-down menu adjacent to **Grouping for student groups**. More information about groupings is included under the **Groupings settings**.
### Common module settings
Under common module settings is where you enable **Group mode **at the activity level. Select either **Separate groups** or **Visible groups **for the activity. Under **Grouping,** you will also need to identify the grouping to be used for this activity. Information on why this is important is detailed under **Group Submission settings**.
## Groupings Overview
A grouping is a collection of groups within a course. Groupings allow you to direct tasks to one or more groups in your course so that they can work together on the tasks. Groupings will be essential for graded items when you use more than one group assignment, and you can mix up the group composition. It will also be necessary if you want to take advantage of the **students submit in groups** setting. This is explained below under **Using Groupings.**
Groups can be set at the course level or the activity level. Using groupings is a way to manage the various groups you have created.
## Creating Groupings
1. In your course, select Participants* >* Enrolled* *Users > Groupings
2. On the Groupings page, select **Create grouping**.
3. In the box adjacent to **Grouping name**, enter a name for the grouping. You may enter a description in the description box if you wish, but it is not necessary. Click **SAVE CHANGES**.
4. On the **Groupings **page, select the people icon on the right-hand side adjacent to the grouping you wish to edit.
5. On the **Add/remove groups** page, select the groups from the groups list on the right to add to your grouping. Hold control (Mac: Command key) and click to select more than one, or drag a box around desired groups with your mouse to select multiple groups.
6. When you are finished, select **Back to groupings**.
## Using groupings
If you plan to use multiple group assignments with students being reassigned to new groups, you will have to set up the groups for each assignment into a **Grouping** for that assignment. It will also be necessary if you want to take advantage of the **students submit in groups** setting for grading. Remember, students cannot exist in multiple groups unless they are also put in a grouping. By default, every student in your course is in a cohort group, so any additional group you create will put those students into two groups.
See the illustrative example for Students 1-4 below:
| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Assignment A Groups **
Group 1: Student 1, Student 2
Group 2: Student 3, Student 4 | **Assignment B Groups **
Group 1b: Student 1, Student 3
Group 2b: Student 2, Student 4 |
If students are **not** put in a grouping for each assignment, when you enter the marks for students in Assignment B, the same mark will be applied to all students because all students in this example are part of two groups. mêskanâs will auto-generate a **Default group**, which apply it to all students who are either: a part of two groups, or no group at all. (This will also happen because they are by default at MacEwan, also part of a cohort group).
To avoid the warning message above, you can either disable the** Students submit in groups** setting, or place the groups for that particular assignment into a grouping.
If you disable **Students submit in groups**, you will not be able to apply universal group marks, and you will have to manually enter a grade for each student, whereas it would be automatically applied to the whole group by using the **Students submit in groups setting.**
Another usage of groupings, could be to bring together groups created from different assignments.
For example: For **Speech Assignment** you created 4 Groups: Alpha Beta, Gamma, and Delta.
For **Video Presentation Assignment, **you want each group to work together with another group. Create two **Groupings**: Epsilon and Omicron, with two groups in each.
## Using groupings with activities
1. With editing turned on, navigate to the assignment you would like to edit and select **Edit settings** from the **Edit** drop-down menu, or you can create a new activity by selecting **Add an activity or resource**.
2. Scroll down to **Common module settings** and select the grouping you wish to use for the activity in the drop-down menu adjacent to **Grouping**.
> ℹ️ **Important note**: If you do not create a grouping for your group assignment, you may receive a warning that students are in multiple groups. This will be problematic because when you enter one grade for a student, that grade will be applied to **all** students who are either, not in a group, or are in multiple groups. To fix this issue, place the groups for the offending assignment into a grouping as described in step 4 above.
> ℹ️
> ℹ️ Information on the functionality of groupings, and the differences between it and groups is discussed in the **Groupings** section, and information about these settings is in **Important settings** section.
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