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 into GauchoSpace.
To use the Group Choice Activity, you will first need to create empty groups in your course. The Group Choice Activity will then be able to place students into these groups. Information on how to make Groups in GauchoSpace is available here.
How to Add the Group Choice Activity to Your Course Site
After your groups are created, you can add the Group Choice Activity with these instructions:
1) From your course homepage, click the Turn Editing On button. Switch on Advanced Tools if it is not already on.
2) In the block where you wish to place the Group Choice Activity, click Add an Activity or Resource then select Group Choice from the list of Activities.
Customizing the Group Choice Activity
The Group Choice Activity has a variety of settings you can customize to fit your needs.
Allow enrollment to multiple groups: Selecting this box will allow a student to be in more than one group.
Publish results: 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 Do not publish results to students will hide group membership from them before and after they complete their choice.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.
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.
Selecting Groups for Student Choice
Under the Groups menu of the Group Choice Activity settings, you will see all the available groups and groupings in your course. The left-hand column called "Available Groups" shows you all of the groups that are already made in your course, whether they already have members or not. Select the group or grouping that you want to make available as a choice, and then click the "Add group" or "Add grouping" button to move them to the right-hand column. You can select multiple groups or groupings at a time by holding down the "Ctrl" button as you select on a PC, or the "cmd" button on a Mac. Save your changes.
If you want to set a member limit on just one group, select the group from the "Selected Groups" column and then enter a value in the "Limit for ____" box.
Restrict Time for Answering
The "Restrict answering to this time period" menu will let you keep the Group Choice Activity open for only a certain time. Select the box next to "Restrict answering to this time period" and then enable a start and/or end date.
Viewing Selected Groups
Once the Group Choice Activity is set up, you can view the responses that students select. Enter the Group Choice Activity by clicking it from your course page. You will see an overview of the groups and the ability to see at a glance the members by clicking the "Show Group Members" button.
For a more detailed view, click the View __ responses link under the Activity's Administration block on the right-hand side. This will show you who is in which group, allow you to delete members out of a group, and download reports of the groups for use outside of GauchoSpace. As students interact with the activity, the groups will automatically be updated in the Participants page.