The Group Choice Activity allows students to enroll themselves into a GauchoSpace group. This can be useful when you want students to break themselves up into groups, when groups are based around a specific topic that students elect into, or when recreating an in-person group in GauchoSpace.
To use the Group Choice Activity, you will first need to create empty groups in your course. The Group Choice Activity will then allow students to select which group they will be a member of. For more information about Groups, visit this help page here: Groups and Groupings
Here's how to create the groups (and Grouping) for students to select from:
- In the Administration block, click Users, then click Groups.
- Click Auto-Create Groups.
- Define the naming scheme of the group to be named as a letter series or a number series:
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- If "@" is used then groups will be named with the letter suffixes (A,B,C, etc).
- If "#" is used then groups will with number suffixes (1,2,3...etc).
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- Select whether you want to create a specific number of groups or whether you want to create groups with specific number of people in it. Specify the number of groups/number of people in the group.
- Update other settings as needed:
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- Change "Allocate members" to No allocation
- If you select Members per group, under the "Group members"settings, check Prevent last small group.
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- In the Grouping subsection, select New Grouping from the drop-down menu. Provide a Grouping name.
- Click Submit.
After your groups are created, here's how to add the Group Choice activity to your course site:
- Log in to GauchoSpace, enter your course site and Turn editing on.
- Select the week/section block in which you would like the activity. Then, click +Add an activity or resource.
- On the All tab, click Group Choice.
- Add a Group choice name and description.
- Under the Groups subsection, select the group or grouping that you want to make available as a choice. Then, click Add group or Add grouping.
- You can select multiple groups or groupings at a time by holding down the Ctrl/CMD button as you select on a PC, or the "cmd" button on a Mac. Save your changes.
- You can select multiple groups or groupings at a time by holding down the Ctrl/CMD button as you select on a PC, or the "cmd" button on a Mac. Save your changes.
- Refer to the "Customize the Group Choice Activity" section for more details on settings including limiting group members and privacy of results.
- Click Save and display.
The Group Choice Activity has a variety of settings you can customize to fit your needs. To customize the Group Choice activity, follow these steps:
- Miscellaneous settings subsection
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- Allow enrollment to multiple groups: Selecting this box will allow a student to be in more than one group.
- Publish results:
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- Always show results to students will let students see who has already selected into groups and who has not yet chosen.
- Do not publish results to students will hide group membership from them before and after they complete their choice.
- Show results to student after they answer will hide the group membership until after they make a choice, then immediately show them the makeup of all groups.
- Show results to students only after the activity is closed will use the "Until" date in the Restrict answering to this time period menu and hide results until the date has passed.
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- Privacy of results: These two options allow you to choose whether you want student names to be published, or if you want the activity to only show a count of how many people are in each group.
- Allow choice to be updated: Enabling this will let a student change their group choice while the activity is still open, provided the group they want to move to still has space.
- Show column for unanswered: Enabling this will show everyone who has yet to choose a group, as long as the display selections allow this.
- Limit the number of responses allowed: Enabling this will let you limit the spaces available in each group. Use this in conjunction with the "General limitation" setting.
- General limitation: Enter a number in this space to limit the spots in each group. After entering a number, click the Apply to all groups button. You can add different limits to specific groups in the next settings pane.
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- Restrict answering to this time period subsection
- Restrict answering to this time period: Selecting this box will let you keep the Group Choice Activity open for only a certain time.
- Open and Until lets you to select the start and end date that students can make their section.
Once the Group Choice activity is set up, here's how you can view the responses that students select:
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Enter the Group Choice Activity by clicking on it from your course page.
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You will see an overview of the groups. Click Show Group Members to see the group members.
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For a more detailed view, click View __ responses under Administration block:
- This details who is in which group, allows you to delete group members and download reports of the groups for use outside of GauchoSpace.
- Groups will automatically be updated on the Participants page.