Organize students into groups

For filtering your view of the Mastering Gradebook, or exporting Gradebook data, you might find it useful to organize students into smaller, more workable groups, for example by section. If you request the Assign by Groups feature from your sales representative, you can make an assignment available only to specific groups of students.

Groups can be created and removed, and students can be assigned or reassigned, anytime. Students can be assigned to more than one group. When you remove a group, students in the group remain enrolled in the course.

For courses with many students: It may be easier to create groups and assign students to groups using an exported .csv file in a spreadsheet program.

Section instructors with the following privileges can perform these tasks:

Task Required Privilege
Add or remove groups Groups
Assign students to groups Roster
Use a .csv file to add groups and assign students to groups Roster
collapsedConsiderations for using one course with groups vs. multiple copies of the same course
If students Then consider using
Might move frequently from section to section A single Mastering course with groups. This allows students to be enrolled in the same course (that is, with the same course ID).
Aren't expected to move much, or the number of students in the class is very large Consider creating multiple Mastering courses by copying. Creating a course with assignments in it and then copying that course creates additional matching courses, each with its own course ID and Gradebook.
collapsedTo add groups
  1. Click Instructor Tools > Student IDs & Groups.
  2. Click  Add/Edit Groups.

  3. Click  Add New Group, and then enter a name for the new group in the new row.

    Acceptable characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, _ (underscore), - (dash), /, and spaces. Group names must begin with A-Z, a-z, 0-9, or _.

  4. Create as many groups as you need by clicking  Add New Group and entering a name for each.
  5. When you're done, click Save and Close.
  6. Assign students to groups (see below).
collapsedTo assign students to, or remove them from, groups

For courses with many students: It may be easier to create groups and assign students to groups using an exported spreadsheet.

  1. Click Instructor Tools > Student IDs & Groups.

  2. For each student, click the down arrow in the Groups column (visible only after you create a group) and select the group.

    To assign a student to more than one group: Click the  plus sign next to the Group name box, and then select an additional group for that student. 

    To remove a student from a group: Click the  minus sign next to the Group name box for the student.

  3. Click Save.
collapsedTo remove groups 
  1. Click Instructor Tools > Student IDs & Groups.
  2. Click  Add/Edit Groups.

  3. Click Remove in the row for any group you want to remove.

    Tip: If the course has many groups, you may find it easier to locate the group if you sort the list. Click either the Group Name or # of Members column header to sort by that column.

  4. Click Save or Save and Close.

Students remain enrolled in the course; only the group is removed.

Note: The groups discussed in this topic are not related to the groups that can be used in Learning Catalytics. Learning Catalytics groups, whether automatic, permanent, or temporary, are created separately in Learning Catalytics.

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