EdtechGuides: Communicate and collaborate with forums guide: Group forums

About group fourms

Group forums are a great way to encourage collaboration and communication between project groups. Group forums can help you to manage communication and collaboration when teaching large groups of students.

"Group Forums provide students with an opportunity to discuss their understanding of a topic and to hear their peers' ideas about the topic. This discussion between students who are learning the same new concepts at the same time allows student to establish their own understanding of the topic." (University of London, n.d)

Before you add your group forum to your module, you need to have an understanding of the group modes and Groups and Groupings. Explore the scenarios below to see what is possible with group forums.

Manage Groups guide

Group mode

Group mode is set in the Common module settings when the forum is created.

No groups where everyone is part of one big community.
Separate groups where students can only see and participate in their own Group Forum.
Visible groups where students can see other groups, but can only participate in their own Group Forum.

Group scenarios

Scenario

Students are working on group projects. You want them to communicate with their Project Group only using a Forum to help them plan and co-ordinate their work.
You are happy for the groups to be random.
There are no groups in use on the module and you do not plan on using groups for any other activities.

How to

Select Participants on the contextual navigation menu to open the Participants page.
From the Enrolled users drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the page, choose Groups.
Select Auto create group.
Follow the instructions to create your Groups.
Follow the instructions to create your Forum
Under Common module settings on the Forum set Group mode to Separate Groups.

Common module settings. Separate groups selected in Group mode

In Moodle 3.9, you can access groups from the Settings menu. Choose Users and then select Groups.

Scenario

Students are working on group projects. You want them to communicate with their Project Group only using a Forum to help them plan and co-ordinate their work.
You want to order the groups.
Groups are already in use on the module and all students are a member of a Tutor Group.

How to

Select Participants on the contextual navigation menu to open the Participants page.
From the Enrolled users drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the page, choose Groups.
Select Create Group and follow instructions to create your Groups.
Create a Group for each Project Group.
Create a Grouping called Project Grouping.
Add all of the project groups to the Project Grouping. If you do not use Groupings, students will have an option of posting to two different Forums (one with all members of their Tutor Group and the other with all members of their Project Group!)
Follow the instructions to create your Forum.
Under Common module settings on the Forum set Group mode to Separate groups.
Set Grouping to Project Grouping.

Scenario

Students are working on group projects. You want them to communicate with their Project Group using a Forum to help them plan and co-ordinate their work.
You want students to be able to view the posts of all Project Groups, but they can only participate in their own Project Group Forum.
You are happy for the groups to be random.
There are no groups in use on the module and you do not plan on using Groups for any other activities.

How to

Select Participants on the contextual navigation menu to open the Participants page.
From the Enrolled users drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the page, choose Groups.
Select Auto create group.
Follow the instructions to create your Groups.
Follow the instructions to create your Forum.
Under Common module settings on the Forum set Group mode to Visible Groups.

References

University of London, Centre for Distance Education (n.d.) How we help you to learn: our approach to course design online Available from: https://london.ac.uk/centre-distance-education/cde-covid-support (Accessed 18.6.2020)