Automatically assign groups within sections of a course!

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

 

I use groups in my classroom a lot, and I love the ability to make groups automatically. However, this feature on Canvas is 100% useless if I can’t divide groups up within sections. Right now, if I have Canvas auto generate groups, it mixes the students up within my entire course. That means students in 1st period are paired with students in 8th period. Obviously that won’t work. It seems like such an easy solution. If I have the students sign themselves up, I can check a box that makes them stay within their section. Why can’t I do that when I generate groups myself? This would be so helpful for many teachers!

 

 

  Comments from Instructure

 

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-12-10)

19 Comments
cward
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Hi all,

Thank you for this suggestion, and for voting and commenting. We've created a ticket in our backlog for this, and although I can't provide a timeframe for when this will become available, know it's something we're definitely interested in doing soon.

Chris

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in development

October 2016 update from Deactivated user​

Development of this feature will begin this month.

erin_mcconnell
Community Novice

I very much hope that this feature will include the ability to sort Sections when manually creating groups. I know that the idea is based on the automatically created groups, but the manual groups have the same need for my teachers with 5 sections in a course.

cohenf
Community Participant

I tried creating randomly selected groups within each section and, after coming here, realized that option is not available. Obviously, I voted it up. While it's not essential, it certainly makes things much easier for me as I have group work exercises in the classroom. Good news is that this was easy to find via a search in the "Community" and that I got to vote it up.

erinhmcmillan
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
  Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2016-11-28)

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-12-10)

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

ROI.png

Thank you to  @nhancock  for submitting this idea, as well as, stefaniesanders​,  @RobDitto ​,  @collinsl ​,  @Nancy_Webb_CCSF ​,  @ehancock ​,  @erin_mcconnell ​, &  @cohenf  for your contributions. Your investment in this idea helped refine a feature which is now part of Canvas! Smiley Happy

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: New
 
KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: Completed