Student Peer Groups

Overview

Canvas (Student) Groups allow students to collaborate and share documents and discussions within their own environment using Files, Pages, Discussions, Collaborations, and Conferences. Through these Canvas tools students can take charge of the resources they share, their participation in discussions, and feedback on how their peers are doing.  In turn the instructor can provide clear guidelines on group site content and how students in the group can assess how their peers are doing (see implementing peer-assessment and evaluation section below). 

Getting Started

Through the People tab instructors can create Student Groups as part of Group Sets , which are defined by their purpose. For example, instructors may want to create a Presentations Group Set that contains 4 groups of 3 (e.g. Present 1, Present 2, Present 3, Present 4) or a Clinical Group that contains 6 groups of 4. In this example we will create a Peer Group Set of 2 groups of 3 each. 

Each Student Group has their own group site is where your students can upload documents to Files, participate in Discussions, Collaborations, and Conferences, and create their own Canvas content pages using the Rich Content Editor.  

Create the Group Set with its Student Groups

  • Choose the People tab in your course menu bar
  • Click the blue + Group Set button to the right

blue_add_group_set.png

  • Name the Group Set (e.g. Peer Groups [1]), choose I’ll create groups manually [3] and click Save [3]

create_peer_group_set.png

  • Click the gray +Group button to create a group where students will be added

  add_group_button.png

  • Name the first Group (e.g. Peer Group One [1]). 
  • Click Save [2]

 name_group.png

  • Repeat for the other groups.
  • Drag your students one-by-one to the group that you want them to belong. There is no need to save in this instance.
assign_students_groups.png

In the settings menu (triple vertical dots) to the right [1] choose Visit Group Homepage [2]. 

visit_group_homepage.png

What students see and do

Students log on and choose groups [1] in the left sidebar. They choose the group [2] (e.g. Entire Class). Groups that students belong to from other classes will be available in All Groups [3]

choose_student_group.png

Once students choose “Peer One" group, they will see the group menu bar [1]. Students click Files [2] and then upload their documents/presentations by dragging them to the upload area [3]. 

student_group_files.png

Students can use DocViewer to preview their presentations in Canvas without having to download them, though PowerPoint audio will not play. Note that students in the group all have preview/edit permissions including delete, though you will see their names to the right of each document that they have uploaded.