[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.

[hfchen]

This would be a great feature add. We should be able to do more with the segregation of students in groups.

[bennetl]

Agree with Sarah MacDonald "....PLEASE adopt this idea!! In our institution, sections are SIS-generated, and instructors can't simply create the sections they need for a purpose like this. So the only current option is to enter student names one by one -- which, as others have pointed out, is not reasonable or efficient, especially in large classes."

Thank you!

[cgurysh]

While I still believe this feature MUST become a priority for Canvas as it is crucial in the K12 market, I have thought of a way around this flaw. By leveraging Mastery Paths, a teacher can "trick" Canvas into giving an appropriate assignment to a certain group of students. To do this the teacher would need to create a Mastery Path and somehow instruct the different tiers of students to answer the quiz questions a certain way. Then based on the student's "performance" on the quiz, they would be assigned particular assignments. It is messy, but could be a useful way to provide the level of differentiation in assigning to groups of students we are all searching/begging for. 

[jbrazil]

As teachers, we are asked increasingly to individualize for students within the same classroom.  This would be huge improvement in allowing me to create extension assignments for students needed added challenges as well as remedial assignments for students in need of more practice.  Right now I create assignments and tell some kids to ignore them and put EX in the gradebook. This causes confusion for all students involved

[zoe_donaldson]

It appears that "sections" cannot be modified by the instructor at my institution, so assignment by section is meaningless (instead, it reflects which major they enroll from). I agree with all those here who have expressed a need to be able to assign items to subsets of students without having to type in names individually. 

[jtwalker]

This is really a vital and basic capability I've worked with in several LMS' since as far back as 1997 (Toolbook Librarian LMS) and has been basic functionality in Blackboard and Moodle for years. In order to have truly adaptive and dynamic content the functionality must exist to assign learning content to Groups that students then are dynamically assignments to based on meeting specific criteria (as they meet the criteria). This is incidentally also how we manage computer access and rights in most modern computing environments. Users (students) aren't (shouldn't) be assigned directly to content (access rights) but rather to Groups that will control their rights to assignments.  This makes things much more flexible. I've used this approach to handle multiple simultaneous standard semester, shortened 14 week, hybrid 8 week, online, and student selected learning content (research, presentation, hands-on, or independent-study focused tracks) courses with ease.

[cgurysh]

I am extremely disappointed that this is not on the product plan. This functionality is vital in the K12 market. I don't think that Instructure fully understands how beneficial and VITAL this is for K12 teachers. The lack of the abiility to easily assign to specific groups of students a particular assignment or quiz creates an adoption hurdle for our teachers. A simple solution would be adding the ability to at least copy and paste a student list into the Assign field in the way you can copy and paste a list of email addresses into an email. This functionality would at least make it easier to provide legally required (IEP) differentiation. 

[hannah_crowder]

At the very least I need to be able to copy and paste a list of names into the "assign to" box. Having to type each name individually is too cumbersome. I have over 150 students in one of my classes and while I have sections I need to be able to group students differently throughout the year. 

[ashley_harvey]

Agreed--I just tried to copy and paste from the groups in People (or from a Word document) and it did not work, but that would be a work-around if it did. It has been years of struggle and I'm hoping Canvas gets this fixed soon.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

We also would like to have groups available in the Assign to area without having a group assignment.  We use sections for syncing enrollment adds/drops and teachers cannot create their own sections for the purpose of assignments.

I can see the difficulty if someone has a lot of group sets - it might show too many groups for the short list you see in Assign to.  There might be multiple ways to deal with this.  There could be a new checkbox in the Group Assignment area where the group set is chosen, "Separate submissions for each student".  Then only the selected group set's groups would show in Assign to, but students would submit their own assignments as if it weren't a group assignment.  Assign Grades to Each Student Individually would then automatically be checked. Or perhaps sometimes you would assign the same grade even if individuals submit their own work?

Or in the Assign to list that shows up, it could show the group sets rather than groups, and when one is clicked on, the groups in that set appear.

Just a thought....