What are Groups?

Groups are a small version of a course and used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on group projects and assignments. Instructors can create groups for students to collaborate on group assignments, pages, collaborations, and more. Instructors can also allow students to create their own groups.

How are Groups Created?

Click on the People link in the Course Navigation Menu.
Click the +Group Set button at the top right.
Give the Group Set a name (e.g. "Project Groups" or "Discussion Groups").
The rest of the pop-up will dynamically offer options as you select how you want to set up your groups. You may refer to the following examples:
- A set of five 4-person groups in which students choose which group to join and enroll themselves (students cannot join a group that already has four members):
- A set of five groups into which students are placed randomly by the system (students will be divided evenly among the five groups, and the instructor is free to reassign students to different groups at any time):
- If you want to create all of your groups and assign students to them manually, select the "I'll create groups manually" radio button:
Click Save.
If you used the self-enroll or random-enroll options, you do not need to do anything further. The number of groups you specified has been created and it is now either up to the students to enroll themselves or the system has already managed enrollments.
If you used "I'll create groups manually" option, you must now click the +Group button and give each group a name until you have created the desired number of groups.
To place students into groups, or to move students from one group to another, drag and drop the cards with student names on them to the desired group.

How Do Students Use Groups?

Students can access their groups from the Home Page of the course or with a Groups button that appears in their Canvas Global Navigation menu once they are enrolled in at least one group.

Clicking the name of their Group will take them to their Group page, where they may use a selection of Canvas content creation and collaboration tools to work with their peers. The tools available for student use within their Group page are:

Announcements (group members may create Announcements that other group members will see)
Pages (group members may work together to create Canvas Page to present their work)
People (see who else is in their group)
Discussions (have a group discussion board)
Files (upload, download and share files)
Collaborations (create collaborative documents using Microsoft Office 365)
Note: Students may use the Conferences tool to have web conferences, but we recommend they use Zoom instead.

With all of these tools, students have full creator access, meaning that while they are within this group space, they have the same "rights" as teachers do in the main course to create content.

How Do Teachers View Group Work?

Course Teachers and TAs may enter each group's page and view their work at any time.

Click on People in your Course Navigation Menu
Select the tab at the top of the page corresponding to the Group Set you wish to view.
For each group you wish to view, click the three-dot "snowman" icon to the right of the group name and select Visit Group Homepage.

Instructor Help for Groups

Creating Groups

Editing and Viewing Groups

How do I edit a group set in a course?
How do I move a student into a different group?
How do I assign a student leader to a group?
How do I view all groups in a course as an instructor?
How do I view content and student activity within a group as an instructor?

Student Help for Groups