In Canvas, you have the option to break Discussion forums into Groups, so that your students are interacting with a smaller subset of the roster. You may choose to use these groups only for a given Discussion, or maintain those groups for all Discussions throughout the course.

Please see: How do I create group discussions in Canvas?

⚠️ The Add/Drop Problem

While Canvas will automatically assign students to groups randomly if you ask it to, we have noticed that setting group discussions up before the semester begins can be problematic.

Many students may add or drop the course before census date. Here's why that's a problem:

- - Canvas will have split students into evenly numbered groups when the course was published. But if multiple students from one group drop the class, that group may be left with too few members.
  - Canvas does not automatically assign newly enrolled students to existing groups. As students add your course, you will need to manually assign them to groups, through the People area.

💡 The Suggested Solution

Since the majority of the roster has stabilized by census date (after you've dropped all no-shows), we recommend that you hold off on establishing groups for your discussions until after your course's census date has passed. This gives you a chance to drop all no-shows, and for students to add or drop your course themselves, before group assignments are solidified.

💻 Workflow

If it is your first time doing group discussions , you can:

1. 1. Create the Discussion forums ahead of time, but do not check-mark, "This is a group discussion."
  2. Complete all drops of no-show students and wait until census day passes.
  3. After census, manually edit each upcoming Discussion that has not yet been released to students, adding the group discussion component.

If you are copying from a previous course with group discussions, you will need to do the following:

1. 1. Import/copy course content into a new Canvas shell.
  2. Manually edit the settings for each Discussion, to remove the "This is a group discussion" checkmark.
  3. Complete all drops of no-show students and wait until census day passes.
  4. After census, manually edit each upcoming Discussion that has not yet been released to students, adding the group discussion component.

🤔 What About Pre-Census Discussions?

You have two options for the discussions that occur prior to census:

- 1. Let all students interact together in the same discussion forums, without groups.
  2. Create an initial "group set" for the first discussions, and then create a second "group set" after census date.
    - This means that, prior to your course start, you would only check-mark the group discussion option for any Discussions occurring before census date.
    - When census arrives, you would edit the remaining discussions, check-mark the group discussion option, but create/use a different "group set," which will randomize the existing students into a new set of groups.