[ARCHIVED] Group Discussions

[jasmith1]

If I create discussion groups, will students be able to see the posts from groups they are not members of? If not, is there any way to set it so this can occur? 

[ddaniels · Accepted solution]

Yes! When you create a discussion, you have the option to select "this is a group discussion." When you do that, you can choose which groups see which discussion. You can also create new group categories from this area, too. The image below is from the "details" section when creating a new discussion. Hope that helps!

[IDTyao]

Hi, I have a similar question. Here is the situation for graded discussion:

1. Students are put into 6 groups.

2. In each group, students post their individual posts.

3. Within the group, a group leader summarizes the post.

4. A group leader posts the consensus post for other group members to read and comment.

We got stuck on Step 4. Group members can only see posts within their own group. 
Problem 1: Leaders do not have a place to post for other group members to see unless we create a separate discussion activity.

Problem 2: This means we have two separate graded discussion groups. It adds extra effort to use SpeedGrader. I have to recalculate the points and have two screens side-by-side to grade. 

It is very painful! 

Could you please provide a better solution to meet our graded discussion need? Thank you!

[richardgc]

@IDTyao , @djackson , @ddaniels 

IDTyaio - I could not agree more with your assessment!

When I turn on 'STUDENT VIEW' here is the system statement "Since this is a group discussion, each group has its own conversation for this topic. Here are the ones you have access to:". 

I realize as the instructor my student view may be different, but there is no method for ensuring the groups can see posts from other groups.

In addition to the issue, you described above, grading the GROUP DISCUSSION is not like any other GROUP assignment because the submissions are per individual NOT as a group. 

END RESULT: the "This is a GROUP discussion" option is misleading and borderline inaccurate. 

RECOMMENDATION: 

1. make the GROUP DISCUSSION option a true group option.

2. under the GROUP DISCUSSION option add >> CAN REPLY TO OTHER GROUPS.

3. under the GROUP DISCUSSION option add >> ASSIGN GRADES INDIVIDUALLY; this way the default is to assign grades to the entire team

Cheers ~ Rich

[djackson]

Hello, Jackson,

Thank you for submitting your question. Once you assign a discussion to a group, it creates a separate discussion for each group in their group page. You can use the Assign to fields to assign the discussion to all of your course groups and then it should still appear for all students and they’ll see all replies.

Here are some guides that may be helpful to you:

How do I create a group discussion in a course?

How do I assign a graded discussion to a course discussion? 

Hope this helps!

Best,

Danielle

[YIWENCHIU]

does that mean in addition to the existing groups, say 6 lab groups, I should create another big group named "course group" consisting of all students? When creating a group-based discussion topic, I then assign it to the 6 lab groups AND 1 course group? 

thanks for your help,

Yiwen

[SusanNiemeyer]

With Discussions, you are either going to have Groups or you're going to have a discussion with the entire class. You can't do both with the same Discussion. It's one or the other.

[tug84345]

Cosigning that I would like to have students work in groups but be able to share their groups' work with the other students. Separating seeing from collaborating/writing would be very helpful.

[HopeFitzgerald]

I'm new to Canvas and finding there are insufficient ways for groups to share with one another. In addition to the above, I understand that Groups can't see each other's Group spaces or the pages they create in their Group (not even view-only), can they? 

[alicia_campos]

Thank you @SusanNiemeyer  @tug84345 @jasmith1 @HopeFitzgerald @YIWENCHIU  and everyone for sharing their comments, I have read them all. 

Please notice THIS ISSUE IS NOT SOLVED, do not why is tagged as solved ??!! :

Currently (Sep 29th 2022), When you have  group discussion and assign it to each group, A GROUP CANNOT SEE OTHER GROUPS' POSTS. I have faced this problem with the same group assignment for 3 years now. 

The only way that a group can see other groups' posts is to assign the discussion to all students in the groups.

Consequence: instead of expecting one submission per group, the system will expect one post per student - and as result, the LMS sends all students who have no posted anything, notifications of missing or late assignments. 

Under Group Discussion there are no options/settings such as  CAN REPLY TO OTHER GROUPS or ASSIGN GRADES INDIVIDUALLY. (I would provide a screenshot of my settings but it is incredibly uncomfortable uploading pictures through this editor. )

Please anyone from Instructure of from the community do you have any tip to allow a group see other groups posts in a groups' discussion?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE HELP AND SHARING!

Alicia

[bernardo]

Yes it would be great if someone would consider fixing this. Having small groups that can only see comments in their own group is useful, but half the advantage of group projects is letting groups share with other groups. For now canvas users have to do contortions to get this kind of functionality.