You can assign work for your students to complete in groups. Any student in the group
can submit responses for the entire group, and the score for the assignment is the
same for
all group members.
Group assignments are indicated with a group assignment icon .
There are a number of reasons why you might choose to assign group work in your
classes:
- To submit lab reports for group work done in a lab. This might be done in
conjunction with individual
pre-lab
or post-lab
assignments.
- To foster working together and problem-solving skills.
- To provoke discussion of the subject matter.
When assigning group work, consider the following recommendations:
- Groups should ideally have 3 students each. Fewer members risks students being
stranded when a group member misses class or does not contribute. With larger
groups, there can be unequal participation or no participation from some members
of the group.
- Group members should have designated roles.
Tip For groups of three
students, the following roles are often useful:
- Manager
- The group leader who ensures that the group completes the
task.
- Recorder
- The student responsible for developing consensus, recording
group decisions, and submitting answers.
- Skeptic
- The student responsible for ensuring that the group considers
alternative ideas and does not draw conclusions
prematurely.
A fourth role, energizer/summarizer, can optionally be used for
larger groups. This student is responsible for helping to motivate the
group and reiterating what has been accomplished.
You can assign
roles to specific students, or let students pick their own roles.
However, students should assume each of the roles you define for your
class at some point during the class term.
- Students should work in different groups during the class term. You can choose
to create new groups for each assignment, or you can change the class group
assignments a couple times during the class term.
- Group diversity is often an advantage. After some grades have been recorded in
your class, you can easily create groups in WebAssign that use either cumulative
class grade or scores on a specific assignment to pair stronger and weaker
students in groups. You can manually change groups to distribute students based
on other criteria not stored in WebAssign, such as age, gender or ethnicity, or
to separate couples or cliques.
-
Schedule the assignment, if you have not already done so.
-
Open the Schedule page and navigate to the
assignment.
-
Open the My Classes page.
-
Click Class Schedule under Class Tools.
-
Click a scheduled assignment in the Assignments list to view the week for which it
is scheduled.
-
Beside the assignment, click .
-
On the Edit Restrictions page, select
Group Assignment.
-
Click Group Control Panel to select the student groups
you want to use.
-
If necessary, click Show Group Creation Tool.
-
Define the student groups you want to use for the assignment.
To do this |
Do this |
Use the student groups defined for the class.
|
- For Group Type, select
Class Groups.
- Click go.
|
Randomly put students into groups. |
- For Group Type, select
Random.
- Type either the preferred number of students per group or the
number of groups you want to create.
- Select either students per group or
groups.
- Click go.
|
Randomly put students into groups that reflect an even
distribution of your students' total scores received so far for the
class.
Note To use this option, you must already have set up your
GradeBook.
|
- For Group Type, select Overall
Score.
- Type either the preferred number of students per group or the
number of groups you want to create.
- Select either students per group or
groups.
- Click go.
|
Randomly put students into groups that reflect an even
distribution of your students' scores for an assignment. |
- For Group Type, select
Assignment Score.
- Type either the preferred number of students per group or the
number of groups you want to create.
- Select either students per group or
groups.
- Select the Assignment with the scores you
want to use as a basis for your groups.
- Click go.
|
Use the student groups you defined for another
assignment. |
- For Group Type, select Group
from Previous Assignment.
- Select the previous Assignment with the
groups you want to use.
- Click go.
|
Note
- You can click go multiple times to see
different randomizations of students into groups.
- When groups are based on distributing scores, each group of
n students is comprised of one randomly
selected student from each nth of the class based
on the score being used. For example, for groups of three students,
one student is selected from the top third, one from the middle
third, and one from the bottom third. Each student's score is
displayed in the list of groups.
- You can manually adjust groups after selecting one of the
randomization methods.
-
Define or change your student groups manually if needed.
To do this |
Do this |
Create a new group. |
- Select Create Group.
- Type a group name.
- Click OK.
|
Name or rename a group. |
- Click rename.
- Type a group name.
- Click go.
|
Remove a student from any group. |
- Select the check box for the student.
- In the Modify Selected list, select
Remove.
|
Move an ungrouped student to a group. |
- Select the check box for the student.
- In the Modify Selected list, select
Move.
- In the Student Groups window, click the name of the group.
|
Move a student to a different group. |
- Select the check box for the student.
- In the Modify Selected list, select
Move.
- In the Student Groups window, click the name of the new
group.
|
-
When you are satisfied with your student groups, click Save
Groups and close the Group Control Panel.
-
Click Save.
Inform your students about which groups they are in. Your students will see this information
when
they view the assignment in WebAssign, but they might want to discuss the assignment
with group members before starting to work on it.
You can use your browser's print function to print the Group Control Panel
page after you have created the student groups.