Creating and Adding Students to Groups

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At times you may want to break your large class into small groups for discussions or collaborative learning events.  As quick overview here are the main steps to do this:

  1. Create Groups
  2. Add Students
  3. Add forum to discussion (if Discussion function is enabled within group)

Once you have logged on to Blackboard, enter your course and click on Control Panel in the lower left of the screen.

In the Control Panel screen, locate User Management and click on the Manage Group link.

In the Manage Groups screen, click on Add Group.

In the Add Group screen you will first need to assign a name to the group and give it a short description, or perhaps outline the goal, objective or assignment for the group.

Next you can select the functions the group will be able to access.  These functions will only be available to the members of the group.  You also need to select if you want the group to be visible at this time.

If you have enabled the Discussion Board function you will need to add a forum to the discussion once you have created the group.

Click on the Submit button to create the group.

After clicking on OK you will receive a receipt that the group was successfully created.  Click OK to continue.

You have now created a group, but as the group exists now, there are no members. To add students to the group, click on the Modify button for the group.

Click on the Add Users To Group link to continue.

To add users you need to click on the LIST ALL tab.  This will only the the students that are in your course.

Because this may take time there is a second dialog box to confirm that you want to list all.  Click on the List All button to continue.

Once the list of students in your class opens, click on the box to the left of the students' names to select the member of the group.  Click on submit to add the students to the group.

When the receipt for this action opens, click on OK to continue.  Remember, if you have enabled the Discussion Board function you will need to add a forum to the discussion once you have created the group.

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