[Assignments] Assign to by Group for Individual Assignment

[ashley_harvey]

This idea was submitted previously and archived (see below). I would also request the same thing. For individual assignments, I would like to be able to "Assign to" by Group. I often divide the class into groups with varying discussion assignments or assignment due dates, yet these are individual assignments. I teach large classes, so it is too much work to type in individual names repeatedly.

Assign to" Student Groups for Individual Assessment

Created on Oct 14, 2015 8:05 AM by Crystal Trotter    

I want to be able to create Groups based on their modification or need and assign it to that group.Currently we have teachers who have to type in a LOT of student names when it's a modified assignment. Being able to pre-create groups with those students in them and assign or exclude that group would save a lot of time.

[kristin_bayless]

I'd like to add another use case in the event this helps in the development.  Currently, we have some "walk to" classes in our elementary schools.  Students are scheduled into their classes according to their homeroom.  For the walk-to courses, I crosslist all the homeroom courses for that particular subject together.  For example, crosslisting all the 5th grade social studies courses together, I end up with all 5th grade students and all of the 5th grade teachers enrolled in the master social studies course.  All teachers have access to all the 5th grade students.  So far so good, but the teachers would like to create groups of students who have "walked to" their classroom.  The group may contain students from each of the SIS scheduled (crosslisted) sections.  These groups could be used for assignment distribution as outlined in this request.

I'm not sure if other schools would have this issue, but it's an example of how the ability to give assignments to groups of students for the students to work on and submit individually, would help.

[kmatson]

Yes Please Canvas. Faculty often want to assign individual work by group simply because they have hundreds of students in their class and this is the only way we have come up with to do this at all accurately. When you have 100 or more students in your class it is extremely difficult to make use of the super feature of differentiated assignments one by one especially since you only see seven names in the list. Creating groups and then being able to assign by groups really helps those faculty in the large classes. When we create an assignment can we have groups as part of the menu to assign to. Currently we only see groups if it is a group assignment. If you have ever tried to grade individually a group assignment and see all the entries in SpeedGrader and the inability to figure out who submitted what you will realize what a mess this is and why we need the ability to assign to groups but NOT as a group assignment.

Thank you,

Karen Matson

[kornowsa]

We could really use this function as well.  Canvas was adopted as an LMS to support our personalized learning initiative in our district. The current way of assigning groups won't help.  We also don't want it to give an additional calendar and collaborative space when we assign personalized assignments.  The only "workaround" that I found might work was by creating additional sections within that particular course and then assigning to those sections?  I've bookmarked this thread and I'm hopeful that this becomes a priority.  Thanks!

[spencer_wendel]

Another issue is that sections are frequently created for a course prior to the course starting.  The groups that need to be created for ease of assigning due dates and gathering individual submissions do not necessarily coincide with these established sections.  It is not intuitive how one would reassign sections to match these groups.  I would additionally be concerned that doing so would cause issues (those sections may be attached to other meanings).

[spencer_wendel]

I have two courses where this is an issue.  In one, design teams (groups) are created after the semester begins.  For the most part, these teams submit group assignments (which works well as-is).  There are times, however, such as when they submit peer reviews for their team members, when I need to make assignments by group but collect individual submissions. 

The other course is a lab where students begin attending the lab on alternating weeks after a certain point in the semester.  They are already organized into sections when they sign up for the class, but in some cases students are allowed to switch to a different lab time (primarily to even out the number of students attending the various lab times).  They are required to submit their lab reports individually prior to the next lab that they are scheduled to attend.  Assigning 160+ students individually to assignments for every lab is prohibitively time consuming!

It maybe goes without saying, but I need the ability to assign quizzes to a group (with individual responses) too. 

I know it is easy to say that work somebody else has to do should be simple to accomplish, but it seems to me that the programming architecture for a change like this might be preexisting.  To me, the addition of this feature iis a no-brainer.  I don't get why there are some people down-voting it.

[mcsmith]

Thank you so much for the additional information each of you provided. As mentioned there are some work arounds with sections, differentiated assignments, and individual assignments; we recognize these are not ideal solutions. This idea addresses a variety of use cases, however it is not possible for us to get this work done within the next 6 months.  We will be moving this idea to Product Radar.  Don't forget to bookmark or follow it to receive updates.

[kmatson]

Yes this is exactly what we need.

Canvas please help the large classroom. We want to assign by group. We don't want an individual assignment and when we go to the Assign To area our groups show up. Currently we only see groups in the Assign To area if we check the Group Assignment box. I want to assign an assignment, quiz, discussion to a group of students; just like I can do with a section of students.

Karen Matson

[kmatson]

We want differentiated assignments by groups that we create within the People area. You only see groups in in the assign to area if it is a group assignment. We want to differentiate an assignment by groups please.

Karen Matson

[Stef_retired]

Anyone currently using group assignments in Canvas, or wanting to learn more, will want to check out the new CanvasLIVE "GROUPIES" series, kicking off this Tuesday, January 31, 2017 with GROUPIES: Group Assignments. RSVP “yes” if you will be there--and if you’re interested, but your schedule doesn’t allow you to attend in real time, RSVP "no" or "maybe" to receive all event updates. Your RSVP ensures that you will receive a notification should the event be cancelled or changed.

[skylesa]

This would be a huge benefit. It doesn't make sense that you can grade individually but that you can't allow individual submission as well. If groups have been assigned and "Group Assignment" is checked, the groups show up. If, however, the "Group Assignment" box isn't checked, those group names don't show up under "Assign to." Also, the workaround of creating sections does not work for us because we have taken away the ability for instructors to create sections.