Advice on moving to a group structure

Advice on moving to a group structure

由Grant Beevers發表於
Number of replies: 7
Hi folks,

I was wondering if some of the group gurus smile could provide some advice on how I can restructure our courses to go to a group model?

At the moment, we have courses which consists of a number of topics, or sessions as we call it. Each session contains course notes, handouts, a quiz and a discussion forum. This pattern is replicated through the sessions.

As part of the assessment for the course, marks are given for contributions to discussion forum topics, as well as written assignments and the online quizzes. I have attached an image showing what this structure looks like.

Our numbers have increased dramatically and will keep on increasing into possibly a couple of hundred, and one way I thought we may best be able to manage a large class size like this, especially relating to forum management, is to use groups. My thinking is to create a number of discussion forums for the same topic, and allocate a forum to a particular group, say of 25 or 50, but give everyone access to the course notes information.

At the end of the day, I need to come up with a better way of managing larger numbers, particularly as it relates to forum, but also generally. We are currently working on a tutor to student ration of 1:25, but could go as high as 50 depending on the course.

Any advice anyone could give to us around managing these larger numbers would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Grant Beevers
附件 course_structure.jpg
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In reply to Grant Beevers

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Helen Foster發表於
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Hi Grant,

Arranging your students into groups sounds like a good plan. You can choose whether students can see the work of students from other groups (visible groups) or not (separate groups) and teachers will have the option of viewing forum posts (and certain other activities) of all students, or only the students in a particular group.

If you're not yet using Moodle 1.9, I'd recommend you upgrade before arranging your students into groups, as you can then make use of the groupings functionality too (see the groupings documentation for more details).
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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Grant Beevers發表於

Thanks Helen,

Yep, I am on the latest ver of 1.9, so can use groupings. Probably what I need to understand better is th best way to go for our situation, and the process. What do I create first? Groupings, then groups, then put members into each groups, or do I arrange the activities into their relavtn groups first, then worry about students groups after?

It's this detail around the process I should undertake is what I anot sure of. I think I will approach a consulting partner to see if they can help us address this quickly.

Thanks,

Grant

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In reply to Grant Beevers

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Helen Foster發表於
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You can only assign activities to groupings, not groups, and in order to do so, you need to create the groupings first. You can create groups and arrange users into groups afterwards.

If you need urgent help, then I think that approaching a Moodle Partner is a very good plan. approve
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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Grant Beevers發表於
Hi Helen,

Ok, had a play with this today. This is what I did.

1. Create 2 groupings - Grouping 1, Grouping 2
2. Created 2 groups - Group 1, Group 2
3. Put Student1 and Student2 in Group 1, and put Student 3 and Student 4 in Group 2
4. Associated Group 1 with Groupings 1
5. Associated Group 2 with Groupings 2

Then I created 2 discussion forums. Forum 11 I associated with Group 1 with parameters Separate Groupings, Group 1, Available for Group Members Only, then, and Forum 2 associated with Group 2 with parameters Separate Groupings, Group 2, Available for Group Members Only.

All OK to here. Students can see the forums that they should, however, one small problem. The students can't reply to any topics in the forums. It appears once I associate a forum with a group, I lose the permissions I had in a non-group situation. To test this, I created a 3rd forum associated with no group, and sure enough, all students can reply to the topcis in thsi forum.

Any ideas? I can give you access if you need.. 微笑

Regards,
Grant
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In reply to Grant Beevers

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Helen Foster發表於
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Hi Grant,

I found the problem exactly as you described, and have reported it in the tracker - MDL-15327. Assuming you have a tracker account, you may wish to watch, comment on or vote for the issue to be fixed.
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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Grant Beevers發表於

Thanks Helen. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case, and that it was a config issue at my end. The version I am on is Moodle 1.9 + (Build: 20080430).

Am quite happy to test this as soon as it's available as it is extremely critical for us at the moment.

Thanks again,

Grant

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Advice on moving to a group structure

由Grant Beevers發表於
Hi Helen,

Now that we have resolved how this works, can you please help me with my next question?

One of the aims of using groups in my situation was to create cohorts of students that could be manageable by a tutor. We are working on 40 as the magic number at the moment, but may change that. So, I have created forums of 40 students, and will add tutors when I need to as numbers get bigger.

Is there anyway I can assign a certain tutor to manage just that discussion forum. i.e. they only get notifications to postings in their forum etc. I would still like them to be able to see the other forums so they can see what discussions are occurring, but easily identify their cohort against the others.

Thanks again,
Grant
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