Group Discussion and Adaptative Release

[rfarrar]

Hello,

I am trying to implement Team-Based Learning into an online asynchronous course for the first time. For the students to do a team quiz, I created a discussion forum where they can debate within their individual teams. This involves giving them a copy of the quiz to answer for a second time after completing an individual quiz.

My problem, and I am unsure of its ramifications, is that I am designating this forum as a team/group activity in Canvas. However, I want this to be an adaptive release activity (i.e., I do not want to allow my students access to the Team quiz until they have submitted their individual quiz). In the module featuring the individual quiz and forum, I have the activities set up in sequential order and have specified that they are required to complete the activities in order before they can proceed to the next one. However, because I set the discussion as a group activity, it appears that the students will be able to see the discussion forum (and the team quiz which is attached to the directions) on their individual group pages WITHOUT needing to follow the adaptive release conditions. Further, there does not appear to be any way to make the forum unavailable on their group page.

Will students be able to see the forum regardless of the module requirements because it is marked as a group activity?

I can see one workaround as creating one different forum for each team and assigning it to individual members, which would take away its status as a group activity, but that seems cumbersome and would result in a great amount of clutter.

[SusanNiemeyer]

What you are hoping to accomplish is really complicated, and frankly speaking, it can't be done.

First of all, Quizzes in Canvas are always done individually. They cannot be set up as Group Quizzes. You can set up Group Discussions and Group Assignments, but not Group Quizzes.

Secondly, I was confused by what you meant by "forums." Canvas doesn't have "forums." Are you referring to the Group Discussions? 

In Canvas, you can set up overall Module Requirements, including prerequisites, for the entire course. However, I'm not sure if that will carry over to the Discussions that students can access through their Groups.

Lastly, I think this scheme is entirely too complicated for your asynchronous students to figure out. It will create too many questions for them and too many chances for students to get lost in this maze of instructions. If I were a student in your class, I would be really frustrated if my ability to participate in a Group activity and receive a grade for it was contingent on other students figuring out how to take a pre-quiz. 

Honestly speaking, I think you are overthinking this project. If you were teaching in a face-to-face class, you might just be able to pull this off. However, this scheme is just too complicated, and it's going to create headaches for you and your students.

[rfarrar · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the insight. I spoke with our institution's instructional designers, and I found a fix. The Discussions will be group discussions, but I will now just keep the discussions unavailable until the individual quiz deadline passes. Once the individual quiz deadline passes, the forum will be made available for discussion.

I hear the concerns about complications, but I am confident that my Canvas shell structure is easy to follow. And you're right, incorporating TBL into an online class is quite the experiment, but I think I have the ingredients to make it work, and even if I make mistakes, I know I can learn from them.

[rfarrar]

And if you are curious, the students will be:

1. taking the quiz individually
2. Taking the same quiz in the form of a Microsoft Form poll, the link to which is in the assigned discussion.
3. They will then rationalize their answers either synchronously or asynchronously.
4. Finally, the appointed team leader takes the quiz again through Canvas using the Team consensus's to earn a score.

I am actually considering changing the last step. To simplify it, I think I will just visit their forums and see what consensus they reached and grade manually. I think that will keep it manageable.