M13a - Group Choice

Keywords: group choice, group, sort.

What is it?

The Group Choice assigns students to a Moodle group when they make their choice/s. Once students are in Moodle groups these can be used to filter assignment submissions; enable group interactions in forums, chats, and wikis; and even hide material and activities so only certain groups of students see them (using groupings).

There is an example of how to set up a Group choice in this video.

Why use it?

As you can set the choice to only allow a certain number of students to make a particular selection, a Choice can also be used to facilitate student tutorial sign-ups. 

Who can use it?

• Tutors can add choices.
• Students can select a group to join.

Before I start...

• Make sure you have set up the groups in Moodle. 

Meeting the baseline

The  UCL E-Learning Baseline suggests the following for Structure :

• 1.1 Present activities and resources in a meaningful, clearly structured, and sequenced way.

The  Orientation section suggests that you should:

• 2.2 Explain participation requirements and:
  
  • Outline how students are expected to use Moodle in an introductory statement .
  • Identify which activities are compulsory and optional.
  • Explicitly signpost all online and offline activities and how they interrelate.
  • Provide an indicator of effort (such as timings or page counts) for all compulsory tasks.
  • Explain how students are expected to use UCL and external e-learning tools. Wholly online courses might provide this information as a screencast video, with a voice over.
  • Link to instructions for any e-learning tools that students are expected to use.

How do I set one up?

Add a  Choice or Group Choice quick guide

1. To add a new Choice activity to your course page, use the toggle switch to turn 'Edit mode' on.
2. Hover between / over the activities and a '+' icon will appear. Decide where you want to add a Group Choice, click the '+' icon and the Add an activity or resource window will appear.
3. Select Choice or Group Choice.
4. Choose a meaningful Choice name.
5. Provide instructions for your students in the Description area.
6. If using the Group Choice set whether students are allowed to select multiple options or not.
7. Label each choice and choose whether or not to limit the number of participants who can select a particular item. Full is displayed when the maximum number is reached. A limit of 0 means nobody can select that choice. If limits are disabled, any number of students can select each option.
8. Note you can add further choice fields by clicking the Add 3 fields to form button.
9. There are also options to set a time limit, let the students see the results, whether to show the students' names and if students can update their choice. You can also select the options to be displayed horizontally (when there are only a few choices) or vertically (when there are lots of choices or long text descriptions).
10. Click 'Save and Display'.

Caution

None  at this time .

Examples and case studies

Examples of use cases can be found on Moodle.org .

Questions & Answers

Q. How can I export the students' group choices?

A. Instructions on how to download data from the Group choice tool:

1. Locate your Group choice tool in your Moodle course and open it. ( Quick tip: click on This course in the horizontal menu and select the type of Activity you want to locate).
2. Click on View x responses (below the instructions to students on the right).
3. Click on Select all (below the display of options and students’ choices).
4. Click on the Download in Excel format button.

Further information

None  at this time .