Changing Group Members During the Quarter
When a course includes group assignments and discussions, instructors and TAs have to be mindful if there are group member changes during the quarter. Changing group membership during the quarter may result in student groups losing their original group submission and scores when a new group member is added to their group.
When a new group member is added to a group, Bruin Learn sees this as a new group. Members of that original group will lose their group submission and scores for any group assignments that they have already completed.
To ensure that group submissions and grades are not adversely affected when a new group member joins a group, follow the scenario options in this guide and choose the best option for your course.
Scenario 1
A student enrolls late to the course. If students haven’t submitted to a group assignment yet, you can change group members without adversely affecting your group assignments.
Scenario 2
If a student enrolled late or you have to make group member changes during the quarter after group assignments have been submitted, there are two options you can choose from to make sure that there is little impact to group submissions and grades.
Option 1
Go through each past group assignment where students have submitted their group work and change the assignment settings to assign grades to group members individually.
Once all the previous group assignments are graded and set to grade group members individually, each student will have their group submission and scores intact. You can then change your groups to add a new member to a group without affecting the scores and group submissions.
Option 1 Workflow
1. Go through all previous group assignments and complete your grading for all group submissions.
2. After grading each group submission, go to each past group assignment and edit the assignment settings. Select the option to Assign Grades to Each Student Individually.
3. Navigate to People (in your course left navigation menu) and select the Group set that you need to change. Add a student to a new group.
4. The Clone Group Set pop-up window will open up. Choose to Change Groups and click Submit.
Option 2 - Clone the Group Set
Cloning the group set is another option to ensure that group member changes won’t adversely affect past group submissions and scores.
When you clone the group set you are essentially duplicating the original group set with a new name. Group assignments in the past will stay intact. The only caveat is that the instructor has to update all future group assignments and group discussions changing the assigned group set to the new cloned group set.
Cloning a Group Set Workflow
1. Click on the People link in your course left navigation menu.
2. Select the Group set that you want to change.
3. Add a new student to a group or move a student from one group to another.
4. The Clone Group Set window will appear. Select New Group Set. Change the name of the Group Set to something that makes it obvious that you are copying the previous group set. Click Submit.
5. You will see a new Group Set tab with the name of the cloned Group Set. Select the new Group Set.
6. Make any group membership changes.
7. Navigate to each future group assignment and group discussion and edit each to set the group assignment to the new cloned group set.
8. Save the assignment settings.
To summarize, instructors have two options when changing group members after group assignments have been submitted. Both options require diligence of the instructor to make the necessary changes to assignment settings. Ultimately, the option to clone a group set is the safest option when adjusting group membership as there won’t be a risk of adversely affecting previous group submissions and grades.
To help minimize the need to change group membership during the quarter, it’s generally best practice to wait to create groups until after the first week of the quarter. Students may drop or enroll in the course during the first week of the course. Waiting to create groups and deliver group assignments until the second or third week of the quarter helps to minimize the need to make changes to groups.
If you need help with this tutorial, please contact bruinlearn-support@it.ucla.edu.