Tip: Automatically put students into groups using enrollment keys
Posted on August 20th, 2009 in Tips, Tutorials | No Comments »
With school beginning I thought it would be a good idea to write a post about automatically putting students into groups using individual enrollment keys. This is definitely NOT a new Moodle tip, but it’s such a useful piece of information that teachers love I thought I would share and remind Moodle users to take advantage of it.
First, I want to give credit to Julian Ridden (aka Moodleman) for exposing me to this great tip. I first found out about this through his blog post (including a screencast), “Automatic Assignment of Class Groups“. There are other sources that explain how to accomplish this task (see below in “Related Links”) but I personally found out about it through his video.
Description
Groups are set up with individual enrollment keys before students enroll into the course. Teachers will tell students what enrollment key to use according to what group the teacher wants them in. They enter in the key when enrolling into the course and they are automatically put into a group according to which key they enter.
Why use this?
When students are in groups teachers are able to filter grades, assignments and participation by group. This is especially useful for secondary teachers who have multiple hours (or periods) of the same class. If there were no groups teachers would see all their enrolled students in one long, alphabetized list (which is hard to manage and can get very annoying with hundreds of enrolled students!). With groups, teachers can view each group (or hour or period) separately when viewing grades, assignments and participation. If you only use groups in this way and only this way, the students will not even notice anything. This is something a teacher would (greatly) benefit from.
Another (more advanced) use of groups is using groups within activities. Using groups within activities allows a teacher to create an activity and view their participation by group. It also gives the teacher an option to choose whether or not the groups can or can not see other groups participation. But enough of that, this post is showing you HOW to automatically put students into groups. More information about using groups and taking advantage of them will be listed below under “Related Links”.
Click here for a video screencast I created for our district showing the below process
Step 1 – Setting your Course Enrollment Key
2.) Scroll down to “Availability” and set your Enrollment Key
Step 2 – Creating Groups & Setting Group Enrollment Keys
5.) Click the “Create Group” button
6.) Enter in the Group Name (ex: Hour 1)
7.) Set the Enrollment Key (this will be what Hour 1 students will enter after they get prompted to enter an enrollment key when they click on your course for the first time)
Step 3 – Giving directions to students
Notes & Tips
- Do not confuse the course Enrollment Key (in course settings) with the individual group Enrollment Keys. If anyone entered in the course Enrollment Key they would still be enrolled but they will NOT be in a group.
- Students only have to enter in the Enrollment Key once.
- You can move, add or remove students from groups by going into the “Groups” link, highlight the Group name and click the “add/remove users” button.
- To ensure groups are not messed with in the future (on purpose or by accident) you can change the Group Enrollment Key to something else so no one can join the group later.
- If you ever forget an Enrollment Key: check the “unmask” box next to it and it will reveal the Enrollment Key in plain text.
Note: While looking for other links and videos on this process I ran across a recent great post from Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org describing the value of Moodle groups. Check it out!
Related Links:
- Automatic Assignment of Class Groups (post and video screencast from Moodleman.net)
- Moodle Tip – The Value of Groups in Moodle Courses (post from Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org)
- A quick way to get students enrolled into their courses on Moodle (post from Moodleblog.org)
- My video screencast showing how to auto assign students in groups
- Moodle Docs: How can I sort students automatically into groups during enrollment?
- Moodle Docs: Groups FAQ
- Moodle Docs: Groups
- Moodle Docs: Groupings (advanced use: groups can be organized into groupings – Moodle 1.9 and higher)
- Using Moodle: Groups Forum (ask questions and get ideas!)
