Southern New Hampshire University

Creating Groups With A Group Discussion Area

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Brightspace is a learning management system that enables personalized learning, course management, and interactive content delivery for educators and students.

1. From the Course Admin panel, select Groups.

the "Course Admin" panel with the "Groups" button boxed in

2. To set up your groups, select the New Category button.

the "Manage Groups" menu, with the "New Category" button boxed in

3. Give the Category a meaningful name, type in a description if needed, and select "Enrollment Type # of Groups - No Auto Enrollments".  Enter the number of groups needed.  You will manually add members to the groups after the groups are created.  Keep "No Restrictions" selected.

the "Category Information" menu, with a one next to the "Category Name" text box, a two next to the "Enrollment Type" drop down, a three next to the "Number of Groups" text box, and a four next to the "Restrict Enrollments To" drop down menu

4.  Under Additional Options, select "Set up Discussion Areas".  This is to give students a private discussion area for their groups. Discussions are a great way for them to plan, communicate, and share ideas within their groups.  Group discussions are only available to group members and the instructor.

the "Additional Options" menu with the "Set up discussion areas" check box checked

5.  Select "New Forum" to create a new discussion forum for each group (Brightspace requires that all discussion topics must belong to a forum.)  In the pop-up window that opens, give the forum a name and select SAVE.  Keep "Create new Topic" selected to create a new discussion topic for each group.  Then select SAVE.

The "Forum" section, with the "New Forum" button boxed in and the "Create new topic" radial button boxed in

6. Select "Create one topic with threads separated by group".  This selection allows the instructor to manage all activity from one topic while students only see threads from their own group. Select Create and Next. Then select DONE and SAVE.  *If you would like to manage each group's discussion topic separately, select the first option, "Create one topic per group".

the "Create Restricted Topics" menu, with a one next to the "Create one topic with threads seperated by group" radial button, and a two next to the "Create and Next" button

7. Add Students to the Groups.  Go to Course Admin/Groups. Select the drop down arrow to the right of the group name and select Enroll Users.

The "Groups" section, with the drop down chevron for a group selected, and the "Enroll Users" button boxed in

9.  Select students for each group and select SAVE.

The menu of the students in the class, with each assigned to a group via checkboxes
The "Groups" list, with the links to each group's respective discussion boxed in
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Assignments 9
Quizzes 10
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Grades 6
Content 8
Enrollments 3

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