Moodle activities suitable for group work

In Moodle, the following activities can be used for group work

• Forum – create the forum (for asynchronous communication, presentation of group work) and set a suitable group mode
• Wiki – create a wiki and set a suitable group mode (each group member can only edit the files of their own group)
• Chat – for synchronous communication
• Mindmap – a separate mindmap must be created for each group
• Group self-selection – first create empty groups in the course and allow learners to join a suitable group
• Assignment – a member of the group (or all members) presents the group work and the members of the group are assessed either individually or all together (same grade)

Example

1. Your course contains seminars, and students enrol to seminar groups in the SIS. In the e-course, you would like to use two group works.
2. The first group work is conducted in groups of four. The students are expected to make a summary as a group in the e-course and you will assess the group as a whole. The groups should not see other groups’ submissions.
3. The second group work is conducted in the same groups of four, in the form of a webinar. Each group selects their own topic. You will assess each learner’s participation individually and after the end of the group work you want all groups to see and comment on other groups’ work.

How to plan the group work:

1. If learners have enrolled into groups in the SIS, also the groups are transferred with the learners to the e-course.

• To make it more convenient to filter learners by groups, set up group mode in the e-course: Administration – Edit settings – Group mode: Visible groups or Separate groups – Force group mode set to No – No grouping.
• Manually or auto-create empty groups: Administration – Users – Groups – Auto-create groups and specify the suitable settings. To import empty groups, select Ignore users in groups.
• Add the Group self-selection activity to the course, specify the number of learners in groups in the menu on the left Max members per group.
• To distinguish between the two different group systems (seminar groups and group work groups), create a grouping of the group work groups. To create a grouping, go to the groups page (Administration – Users – Groups), select the tab Groupings and click on the button Create grouping. To assign groups into the grouping, click the people icon in the column on the right.

2. Add an assignment to the course as an activity.

• In the assignment settings, select Students submit in groups – Yes and under Grouping for student groups select the grouping created from group work groups.
• To make it easier to filter the submitted assignments by groups, set the group mode also in the general module settings: Group mode – Separate groups or Visible groups; under Grouping, select the grouping created from group work groups.

3. For the second group work, the groups have already been created and the learners assigned into groups.

• For this group work, it is suitable to use forum in the separate groups mode. Learners can discuss, hidden from other groups, and make a summary. You can assess their forum posts. In the forum settings, set the forum as graded and select the group mode: Group mode – Separate groups or Visible groups; under Grouping, select the grouping created from group work groups.
• For choosing a topic it is suitable to use e.g. the wiki, which IS NOT in group mode and contains a table for names of topics, to which learners can write the name of their group or group members.
• To make the group work summaries accessible to other groups to comment, you need to create one more forum, which IS NOT in group mode, and ask a representative of each group to submit their summary. As you assessed students’ participation in group work using the previous forum, this forum is not graded.