Small Groups can be used by the Site Administrator to divide up their students into groups for a variety of purposes. Groups may be used for Problem Based Learning, interest area sub-divisions, term paper projects, study teams, peer review, the jigsaw method, and many other instructional purposes. Small Groups can also be tied in with Chat and/or the SignUp List.

Assigning Small Groups

1. Begin by accessing Small Groups from within Information.
2. At least one role must be chosen to before assigning small groups. Choose the role(s) you wish to assign from the list on the left and then click the Add button.
3. Click Save Settings once all roles have been chosen.
4. Use the Assign Small Groups button to begin creating groups:
   1. Enter the number of groups you'd like to create in the text box.
   2. The "Assignment Method" allows you to clear any existing groups before creating new ones or choosing to keep existing groups and only sorting unassigned users if some groups already exist. 
   3. The "Sort Type" options lets you choose how to assign the groups:
      • Alphabetical - Chooses users by last name alphabetically down the list.
      • Alphabetical 2 - Chooses users by last name alphabetically using the "count off" method. 
      • Random - Randomly selects users to place into the groups.
   4. Click the Submit button once you have chosen all settings.
5. You will now see a list of groups and their users. Use the Assign Small Groups button to edit the groups.
6. To manually assign users, drag and drop a user from one group to another or select all users you wish to move using the check boxes and use the drop down menu and Move Users button to move them as a group.

Unassigning Small Groups

Removing small groups once they are assigned and utilized within another tool (with Access Control) has implications for Chat logs and the Signup tool. This is not recommended.

The Ungroup All button can be used to ungroup all users. Use the Assign Small Groups button to edit the number of groups and/or unassign and re-assign the groups.

If you need to edit the role that is used for Small Groups, user the Settings tab to do so.