Facilitating group work using Canvas

Group projects, presentations, demonstrations, and similar assignments can be valuable learning experiences for students as collaboration affords shared knowledge building amongst peers. The following process is a straightforward approach to structuring group work via Canvas. For more complex tasks, consider adding additional guidance and checkpoints to ensure high-quality final products.

1. Create groups using the Canvas People tool.
   • Instead of randomly assigning students to groups, consider constructing groups based on students' availability. You can either ask students to provide their typical availability via a Canvas Quiz then manually assign them to a group or allow them to self sign-up to a group based on their schedules.
   • Creating groups via People automatically provides a space in Canvas for students to coordinate their work and allows you to collect one deliverable per group.
2. Provide an explicit procedure for project completion, including how and when to use specific IU technologies. Always provide the accompanying help documentation.
   • You may allow students to complete projects using non-IU technologies, but to ensure access and support equity, always provide a basic process that only requires IU supported technologies.
3. Create a group Assignment for final product submission. Ensure the following:
   • The complete set of instructions and grading criteria are provided in the Assignment description.
   • Submission type is set to "Online" and the appropriate "Online entry options" are selected.
   • The "This is a Group Assignment" checkbox is selected.
     • If you would like the ability to assign different scores to students in the same group or provide differentiated feedback, select the "Assign grades to each student individually" checkbox.
   • A due date is set and matches the information provided in the course syllabus.
   • If an availability date is set, it is at minimum two weeks before the due date.

   Note: If the assignment is a paper or essay, you may wish to enable Turnitin Plagiarism Review.

4. Create a "checkpoint" Group Assignment to help keep groups on track for successful project completion.
   • This could be a graded or ungraded assignment. The intention is to create accountability for progress as well as an opportunity for formative feedback from the instructor.
   • Consider if you would like to provide individual or group feedback at this checkpoint then select the appropriate options when creating the assignment in Canvas.
5. Create a group member feedback opportunity via a Canvas Assignment or Canvas Quiz.
   • If eliciting feedback via an Assignment, do not select "This is a Group Assignment." Consider setting "Display grade as" option to Complete/Incomplete for ease of grading.
   • If eliciting feedback via the Quizzes tool, select the "Graded Survey" for the Quiz type. Collecting feedback via a Graded Survey allows you to provide points for completion and view student survey responses in Speedgrader.