To access the Workspaces, instructors and TAs must go to the People link in the Course Navigation Menu.

To access the Section groups (based on Registrar enrollments), click the Section Groups tab.

Then, locate the section you wish to visit and click on the three vertical dots to the right. Select Visit Group Homepage

If you want to create additional group workspaces (outside of the Registrar enrollments), you will want to create a New Group Set and assign students to their groups. The workspaces of these manually created groups will also be accessed through a tab in People. 

Group workspaces share some of the features that a regular Canvas Course has. In the Home, the Course Name and the Workspace Name are located in the Breadcrumb Navigation Bar, at the top left side of the page. 

Underneath, a Select Group dropdown menu allows instructors and TAs to toggle between the workspaces in that group set. 

The Workspace Navigation Menu to the left lists all the workspace’s features:

• Home. Displays the workspace’s recent announcements, discussions, and calendar events. This homepage can’t be changed.
• Announcements. Displays the workspace’s announcements. 
• Pages. Similar to the Pages link in the Canvas Course, this link displays a list of all the workspace’s pages in alphabetical order. Instructors, TAs, and students in that workspace can create a Page. 
• People. Displays all the workspace’s members (instructors, TAs, and students).
• Discussions. Displays all the workspace’s discussions. Instructors, TAs, and students in that workspace can start a discussion. Instructors and TAs can also start a group discussion from the main Canvas course.
• Files. Displays all the files that have been uploaded to that specific workspace. Only workspace members (instructors, TAs, and students) can upload and access these files.
• Collaborations. A space for workspace members to collaborate using Google docs, sheets, or slides. All workspace members can start a Collaboration.

To exit a workspace, go to Home in the workspace’s navigation menu and click the Course Name in the Breadcrumb Navigation Bar. 

Workspaces offer many possibilities to enhance TA sections and group work. 

• Add Calendar Events that are specific to that workspace, for example, section times, office hours, and group presentation dates. To do this, you must access the Calendar via the workspace’s View Calendar link in Home. 
• Send announcements to that specific workspace. All group members (including instructors and TAs will receive the announcement)
• Create a Collaboration for the section’s notes. Instead of writing notes on the whiteboard, use a Google Doc and project it in the classroom. 
• Create Pages to organize the week’s discussion section activities. You can use text headings and horizontal lines to break up the page into sections. See the image B below for an example. 
• Share files with your section only.
• Use the Inbox to message all or some of the workspace members. 
• Label pages and files descriptively to make it easy for students to find them. Usually, it is recommended to label the resources with the date or week in which that resource will be. E.g., “Week 1 Discussion Section Activities and Readings”, “Week 1 Homework.”
• If using it for group work, 
  • Students can start a Collaboration to brainstorm, draft their group work, create their slide presentation.
  • Students can send an inbox to other workspace members. This is a great tool to coordinate group work.  

Group Workspace’s Limitations

Workspaces are more limited than Canvas courses. These features are not available in workspaces:

• The default Home can’t be changed.
• The links in the Navigation Menu can’t be hidden.
• Modules can’t be created. You could replace the module functionality with Pages. Remember that the Pages Index Page is alphabetically organized. Thus, label the Pages so that they are organized alphabetically by weeks. E.g., “Week 1. Discussion Section Activities”, “Week 2. Discussion Section Activities”, and so on. 
• Files and Pages in a workspace can’t be shared with other workspaces. If you want two workspaces to have access to the same resource you’ll need to upload it in both workspaces. 
• Course links can’t be added through the workspace’s Rich Content Editor. You can only add links to items within the workspace. You may add course links as external links.
• Student View is not available. 

Image A. Using one Page to organize all the section’s work

Image B. Using one Page per week to organize the section’s work