Teaching Tools

Canvas Essentials: Groups

The icon for Blackboard and the Icon for Canvas merge into each other

Groups are a small version of a course and used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on group projects and assignments.

  • Instructors can create groups for students to collaborate on group assignments, pages and collaborations
  • Instructors can also allow students to create their own groups
  • Very similar to Blackboard groups (each member gets their own calendar, discussion board and various collaboration tools)
  • Group assignments are possible (graded or ungraded)

  • Randomly assign members or manually create groups
  • Found in People (left hand menu)
  • Import a group using a CSV file
  • Assign a leader to the group

What’s new to Groups in Canvas

  • Clone a Group Set
  • Set Group Membership Limit
  • Visit Group Homepage, an interface including Announcements, Pages, People and Discussions
  • Add students with an email and edit user roles
  • Allowing all users or members only add html pages
  • Set group assignments for 1 student to upload or all group members
  • Set up a group quiz
  • Add a peer review to the group assessment
  • Groups can share files for collaboration
  • Feels more interactive, user friendly, student orientated, with a sense of community

What are the benefits?

  • Very simple to set up
  • Easy to manage
  • Invite students to join the groups in with an email
  • Drag and Drop users into groups
  • Students can share files for collaboration
  • Student focused interface
  • External LTIs are supported

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