Setting Up a Group

In Moodle, groups are set up for the whole course, but only impact those activities that are set to use groups. Groups can be changed throughout the course as needed.

Instructions

• Log in to Moodle and enter your course site.
• Click Participants on the left-side menu.
• Click the Gear in the upper right corner of the Participants window and choose Groups.
• From here you have two choices; to auto-create groups or manually create them.

Auto-Create Groups

• Click Auto-create groups near the bottom of the screen.
• Fill out the options for your groups:
  • General
    • Naming Scheme: This is how your groups will be named. You can use @ to create letter name groups or # to create numbered groups. Click the blue question mark next to the text box for more information.
    • Auto create based on:
      • Number of groups: you specify how many groups you want
      • Members per group: you specify how many students you want in each group
    • Group/member count: how many groups or members per group you want, based on your choice above
    • Group messaging: allow or prohibit group members to use the Moodle messenger to communicate with their whole group.
  • Group Members
    • Select members with role: typically you should choose student.
    • Select members from group: only use if you want to create a group within a group.
    • Allocate members: choose how the groups will be divided
    • Prevent last small group: if checked, no group will be smaller than the number you set above, but might be larger.
    • Ignore users in groups: if checked, the group will contain only users that are not already in another group.
    • Include only active enrollments: if checked, any students with suspended accounts will not be included in the groups.
  • Grouping
    • Grouping of auto-created groups: allows you to put all newly created groups into a grouping
    • Grouping name: the name for the new grouping
• Click Preview if you want to look at the groups before creating them, or Submit to simply create them.

Create Group

• Click Create Group near the bottom of the screen.
• Fill out the options for your group:
  • General
    • Group name: How the group will be identified in Moodle.
    • Group ID number: Leave this blank.
    • Group description: optional
    • Enrollment key: behaves like a password for students to access groups. Typically not used.
    • Group messaging: allow or prohibit group members to use the Moodle messenger to communicate with their whole group.
    • Hide picture: if a picture is uploaded below, choose to show or hide the group picture.
    • New picture: allows you to upload a group picture/icon to identify the groups. 
  • Click Save changes. The group will then appear in the list of groups on the next screen.
  • Click the name of the group in the list. 
  • Click add/remove users to put students into the group you created.
  • On the next screen, click the name of a student you want to add to the group and click Add. Repeat as necessary for all desired group members.
  • Click Back to groups.