What is it?
Groups in Blackboard are a way of splitting your students into teams for the purpose of collaboration.
What does it do?
You can prepare groups at the start of your module and use these to set assignments to groups, release content to groups, send messages to groups, and you can also use groups in breakout rooms in Collaborate.
What should I know?
You can make groups hidden or visible to students. A hidden group will not appear in the groups list when students click on this, and they will not know they have been allocated to a group. This may be useful if you are only using a group set for custom release of assignments.
Self-enrolment groups must be visible to students so that they can enrol in a group. Also, if you create a group assignment, the group will become visible to students automatically.
Step 1: Navigate to the menu at the top of your module page, select Groups. You can use this area to see what groups you have already created and create new groups for your course.
Step 2: Select the New Group Set + icon at the top right of this page to create a new group set.
Step 3: There are three ways you can create group sets: custom, randomly assign, or self-enrolment.
Custom Group Sets
Step 1: Making sure you have Custom selected from the drop-down menu, you can begin to create a custom group set. Click on the link that says New Group Set [date] to change the title of this group set. We recommend that you name this something meaningful to yourselves and to students, e.g. Tutorial groups, Presentation groups, etc.
Step 2: Click on the purple plus sign below the list of student names to create a new group. You can click on the plus sign as many times as needed to get the desired numbers of groups.
Step 3: You can re-name the individual groups by clicking on the group title (defaults to New group #) and then entering a clear and meaningful name (e.g. Laura’s tutorial group, Presentation topic X, etc.). You can use the area that says Add a group description to enter any relevant information for that group.
Step 4: To add people to the groups you’ve created, go to the top of the page where all the students are listed and click on the three dots next to a user’s name. You can then use the drop-down menu to select the group you want to add them to.
Randomly Assigned Group Sets
Step 1: Making sure you have Randomly assigned selected from the drop-down menu. Once you have done this, you can use the Number of groups menu to determine the number of groups and students per group.
Step 2: Click on the link that says New Group Set [date] to change the title of this group set. We recommend that you name this something meaningful to yourselves and to students, e.g. Tutorial groups, Presentation groups, etc.
Step 3: You can re-name the individual groups by clicking on the group title (defaults to New group #) and then entering a clear and meaningful name (e.g. Laura’s tutorial group, Presentation topic X, etc.). You can use the area that says Add a group description to enter any relevant information for that group.
Note: Remember that this randomly assigns students who are enrolled on your course at the time you create this group set. If students are added to the course later, you will have to edit this group set to assign that student to a group.
Self-enrolment Group Set
Step 1: You will need to make the group visible to students before you can select a self-enrolled group, so make sure you have this setting on.
Step 2: Select Self-enrolment from the drop-down menu. Click on the link that says New Group Set [date] to change the title of this group set. We recommend that you name this something meaningful to yourselves and to students, e.g. Tutorial groups, Presentation groups, etc.
Step 3: You can use the description box at the top of the page for general instructions for students. You can choose a date that the self-enrolment will become available to students, and the date when this will close. At the end date, any students who have not enrolled in a group will be automatically assigned.
Step 4: You can enter the maximum members per group and decide if you want to hide the enrolled students from their peers or allow them to see who has enrolled in a group.
Step 5: Click on the purple plus sign below the list of student names to create a new group. You can click on the plus sign as many times as needed to get the desired numbers of groups.
Step 6: You can re-name the groups by clicking on the group title (defaults to New group #) and then entering a clear and meaningful name (e.g. Laura’s tutorial group, Presentation topic X, etc.). You can use the area that says Add a group description to enter any relevant information for that group.