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Groups and groupings - create groups

Overview | Types of groups and groupings | Groups | Groupings || Support

This entry relates to Groups and groupings.

There are three different ways of creating groups in FLO, with each way meeting a different need.

To create one group, you want to manually create an empty group.
To create a number of empty groups or create groups with random students, you want to automatically create groups.
To create a group (or groups) with specific combinations of students, you want to import groups from a CSV file.

Good practice guides and tip sheets

Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to group-related resources are provided below.

Group work

Manually create an empty group

In the topic, open the Topic Management panel by clicking the button (cogs icon) on the main menu
Click on Groups in the User Links menu
Click on the Create group button
Give the group a Name. Students can see the membership of groups, so do not create group names based around extensions, grades, language proficiency or medical conditions
Click the Save changes button
Now you can add students to the group

Automatically create groups

In the topic, open the Topic Management panel by clicking the button (cogs icon) on the main menu
Click on Groups in the User Links menu
Click on the Auto-create groups button
Give your groups a naming scheme. Enter a name that all groups will share, then add either @ to include a letter (e.g. Group A, Group B) or # to include a number (e.g. Group 1, Group 2). Students can see the membership of groups, so do not create group names based around extensions, grades, language proficiency or medical conditions
Use the Auto create based on drop-down menu and choose:

Number of groups (a particular number of groups)
Members per group (a maximum number of students per group)

Following on from your last choice, go to Group/member count and enter the number of groups you want, or the maximum number of students you want in each group
By default, FLO will add all students in the topic into the groups you are creating. You can change this by changing the following settings in Group members:

Setting	Effect
Select members with role	Will create groups based on another role (e.g. use this to create groups based on tutors)
Select members from grouping	Will create groups based on who is in a particular grouping instead of all students
Select members from group	Will create groups based on who is in a particular group instead of all students
Allocate members	Will created groups based on alphabetical order, instead of randomly.

If you want to leave groups empty, choose No allocation from the Allocate members drop-down menu (default is Randomly). Choosing No allocation means you can get students to select their group (when using the Group self-selection tool)
Allocate members settings

Open the Grouping section. To put the groups in a new grouping, add a Grouping name. To put the groups into an existing grouping, use the Grouping of auto-created groups drop-down menu to change New grouping to the name of the existing grouping.
Select the Preview button to see how the students will be distributed across the groups (this appears at the bottom of the screen)
Click the Submit button to confirm

Import groups from a CSV file

Create a new Excel spreadsheet
In the first row, enter 'username' (lower case), then 'group' (lower case) in the first two cells.
In subsequent rows, enter a student FAN, followed by the name of the group you are adding them to. Note: If a group name already exists, the student will be added to the existing group. If the group name is new, the group will be created. Students can see the membership of groups, so do not create group names based around extensions, grades, language proficiency or medical conditions.
You can also record what grouping each group belongs in. To do this, add a third column called 'groupingname' (lower case) and list the relevant grouping for each group

Your imported groups will be automatically allocated to those groupings. The groupings will be created if they do not already exist.
Save the Excel spreadsheet as a CSV file
In the topic, open the Topic Management panel by clicking the button (cogs icon) on the main menu
Click on Groups in the User Links menu
Click the Import groups button
Upload your CSV file and click the Import groups button. Your groups and users will now be imported. Note: You may see some messages telling you that the group already exists. That's fine – your students will be added to the existing group.
Click the Continue button. You will be taken to the Users > Groups screen where you can check your groups and student allocations have been set up correctly.