Create and manage groups in Perusall
- Jacqueline Kort Mascort (Deactivated)
Perusall automatically groups students in the course into smaller "discussion groups" (the default is 20 students). You can change automatic groups to manually created groups. You can change manually created groups back to automatic groups.
In this article:
Automatic groups
In automatic groups, students will only see the comments of other students in their group, as well as any threads that an instructor has started.
Groups change from file to file, so students have an opportunity to interact with different peers over the course of the term. Groups for a particular file are fixed once the file is uploaded to ensure students have a consistent view of each file.
The number of groups formed depends on the enrolment estimate and target group size, both of which can be updated through the course Settings. However, since groups are fixed, changing these settings will not affect the groups for file already added to the course. They will instead take effect for any file uploaded after the Settings are changed.
Students can only see comments in their own group.
Review student groups and change group options
To see the groups that students have been assigned to:
On the course home page, select the Library tab.
Select a file and then select the Groups button.
Be careful when changing the grouping settings for a course. Students only see comments of group members. Changing group members mid-course means students will see a different set of comments when reopening a file after the change has been made. Example: Student B responds to a comment by Student A. These two students are later placed into different groups. Student B can no longer see their response to Student A's comment because that comment is now in a different group. This situation is likely to confuse students.
Manual groups
You can manually add students into groups via Grouping Options in Settings.
Enter a group number next to each student in your roster. Students that enroll in your course after you manually create groups will be placed into one of the groups at random; you can change this in Grouping Options.
Change from manual to automatic groups
To change from manual to automatic groups and force Perusall to reshuffle its automatic groups:
Launch Perusall.
On the course home page, select the Library tab and then select the files with the groups to be changed.
Select the Groups button on the right to show the current groups for the file.
Select the Reshuffle Groups button at the bottom of the groups window to automatically reshuffle the student groups.
Read more:
How do groups work? (Perusall support documentation)