groups in canvas

[WayneLee]

How do I create a structure of pages or discussions in one group and then proliferate the same structure into all the other groups?  

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @WayneLee,

The Group sites in Canvas, in my opinion, are generally more meant for students to use to collaborate with each other on projects, not as much for Teachers to add content in to.  For discussions, selecting the "group discussion" option when creating a discussion in the main course will actually put the discussion in each group site for you.  I don't think there's any way to do something similar for Pages.  Can you perhaps share the use case scenario here, as I don't recall coming across a request like this in the past.

-Chris

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @WayneLee,

The Group sites in Canvas, in my opinion, are generally more meant for students to use to collaborate with each other on projects, not as much for Teachers to add content in to.  For discussions, selecting the "group discussion" option when creating a discussion in the main course will actually put the discussion in each group site for you.  I don't think there's any way to do something similar for Pages.  Can you perhaps share the use case scenario here, as I don't recall coming across a request like this in the past.

-Chris

[WayneLee]

Sure! that's what I'm trying to do: post a question that they have to respond to in the discussion pages. But I don't want to have to go to each group and then re-paste it.

(larger problem with groups is that the class roster does not indicate group membership.  I have to maintain a separate spreadsheet.  Also, the group member lists don't seem to update when people drop the course.  They're not on the course roster any more, but they're still listed in the group.  I have to manually go through name by name and figure out who dropped and then delete them from the group).

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @WayneLee,

I agree that group management can be a bit of a pain to manage.  For our faculty, I almost always suggest waiting to create groups in Canvas until the end of what we call our "add/drop period", where students should not be able to freely make changes to their classes anymore.  Waiting until a roster is pretty stable (if possible) will avoid a bulk of the group enrollment issues you mentioned.

As for the group discussions, if you want each group to respond to the same prompts, all you need to do is create the discussion in the main course shell, and select the "group discussion" option (guide at How do I create a group discussion in a course? - Instructure Community).  What that does is essentially put a copy of the discussion prompt in each of the group shells, so the students all just reply in their group.

Hope this helps!

-Chris