Hello @GRE6 ...
(1) Is there a way to be in the View as Student mode and access the content for a group? It doesn't seem to automatically happen, and I don't see a way to add the test student to a group. (What I want to check is how students see the group discussions that I set up.)
The "Test Student" role is not able to access group that you set up in a course, unfortunately. I'm not 100% sure why, but it might be because the "Test Student" role doesn't have an actual e-mail address associated with it like a regular user account would. Maybe you could ask your school's Canvas administrator to see if he/she would be willing to set up a "dummy" student account for you to access so you could see an example of what a discussion topic looks like within a group? (It's not much different than a regular discussion topic in a course, to be honest.)
(2) Is there a way to change what is visible in the sidebar on the group page? That is, what's under "Group 1" here:
I'm not sure if students can access this page at all or if so, what they see in the sidebar. But what's in this image doesn't match what students can access in the in the regular course view (which is less items).
There is no way to change these menus when you are inside a group...as far as I know. Students see all of these options on the left side of their screen when in a group. You cannot hide these menu items like you can via your course "Settings" >> "Navigation" tab screen. On this Student Guides page, under the "People and Groups" heading, there are several Guides that speak to how students can access and use the groups: Student Guide - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com). For example, these two Guides are helpful:
You are correct that the menu options available within these groups are more limited compared to what you may have available (or not available) within a regular Canvas course. This is by design.
I hope this helps to clarify things for you. Let Community members know if you have additional questions about this...thanks!
