Assignment groups for differentiation (not collaborative projects)

[AdrianGREIG]

Hi,

Trying to get my head around the best way to create, for want of a better term, logical groups of children for easy dissemination of assignment tasks to specific groups of children to individually complete an assigned task.

Scenario:

I have a class cohort of 30 students.

• 20 of these students would easily be assigned a standard assignment task without any adjustments to meet their learning needs;
• 6 need minor adjustments but essentially the same task; and
• the remaining needing significant adjustments.

Is there a way to create logical groups (NOT for group collaborative projects) but a 'dissemination' group that I can assign kids into specific groups for easy deployment of assignments, so that each child regardless of 'group' gets their own individual assignment to complete.

From a management perspective a single click on a 'most' kids group as opposed to everyone will be more effective to send assignments. This also means that those in differentiated groups (or even in a group by themselves) can get stuff specifically by themselves when assigned.

This is not simply just adding more time but adjustments to the task themselves making them essentially a new assignment (regardless of it being a small adjustment or a major one).

Is there such an option? What is it called?

Thanks

Adrian

[Ron_Bowman]

@AdrianGREIG -

Yes.  You need to create sections in your course and then add those students to the appropriate sections.

Instructor guide page on adding sections to a course

That page tells you how to create the sections in the course.  Once those sections are created, you can go to the people page and add the students to the section in one of two ways.  The first way requires you to go through student by student and add them to a section.  The other way is to use the add people button where you can put all of the user ids(or whatever you want from the three options) for a particular section and add them into that section - the drawback here is the student then must accept an invitation to join that section.  You may not want students to know that information directly or not - they will know based off of the assignment (I think).

Ron

[AdrianGREIG]

Thanks for that. 

I am just hoping that what I have now read about Sections allows for me to have the students still see some aspects of the original section they are in whilst still getting dedicated work assigned to them in the section. Not all materials need to be adjusted. 

Time to play and see how this works in practice... Thanks @Ron_Bowman !

[Ron_Bowman]

@AdrianGREIG -

Yes you should be fine.  Everything will work as you want.  If assignment 1 is for everyone, you just create it and the assign to box by default is set for everyone in the class.  if assignment 2 is for those students in section1, you x out everyone and then select section1 for the assign to group.  When you go to save the assignment it will ask about everyone else, but you just ignore that /cancel it and continue with the save.  it is pretty easy to do.  Furthermore, students only see the assignments that they have been assigned to.  

so, in an assignment group you could have the assignment 1a assigned to section1 only, assignment 1b to section2 only and assignment 1c to section3 only.

Ron

[rbriones]

So when students are placed in the new section for differentiation, do they still remain in the original bigger section?  When the assignment is not being differentiated and all students are receiving the same assignment, can I just assign it to the original section or will I have to assign it to group 1 and group 2?  And what if our sections are being created by our SIS?

[MrsStrubhar]

I need to be able to do this as well. If I create my own section, it does not sync grades to PowerSchool, which our district still uses to store final grades. 

[TrishaMeyer1]

Hi @MrsStrubhar,

Assuming you are able to add sections (i.e. that it's not disabled by your institution), you will need to import grades to PowerSchool manually. My district has the same issue with our SIS, Aeries. The sync process will not work for assignments that are assigned to sections that were not created by the SIS.

It's a trade-off that results from using two distinct systems that have some limitations on their mutual integration. You'll have to decide if it's worth losing the convenience of the grade syncing in order to have the sections you desire.

(Another option is to create a "dummy" assignment in Canvas where you place all the grades from the separate sections. Then you can sync that assignment to your SIS. You'll have to make sure the "sectioned" assignment does not count in the grade calculation, either by checking the box to exclude it or by placing it in an assignment group with a weight of 0%.)

[MrsStrubhar]

I do enter grades manually. But because PS and Canvas are linked, students are enrolled in "sections" by default.

[TrishaMeyer1]

It shouldn't affect enrollments, as the students will remain in the sections created by your SIS. You can create additional sections (or sub-sections) that will not be "seen" by your SIS.

Students can be in more than one section at a time within a course. 

[toddwferguson]

I also have this question. I teach at the collegiate level, and I do not have permission to create new sections. It seems like an easy fix if 1) We created Groups in the People tab, and 2) these groups were available as options in the "Assign To" feature without having to select "This is a Group Assignment." I do not want a group assignment. I need this to be individual assignments that go to specific groups.

For context: I use the "Groups" to randomly assign students into treatment or control groups for pedagogical research, and I need the ability to quickly give these groups different assignments.