Canvas Groups allow you to organise students into smaller teams for collaborative work. Groups are commonly used for group assignments, discussions, projects, and peer learning activities.

When groups are set up, each group receives its own private workspace within the module.

How to Set Up Groups

  1. In your Canvas module, click People in the module navigation menu.
  2. Select + Group Set to create a new collection of groups.
  3. Name the group set and choose how students will be assigned:
    1. Manual assignment – You place students into groups yourself.
    2. Automatic assignment – Canvas randomly assigns students based on the number of groups or students per group.
    3. Self sign-up – Students choose their own groups within limits you set.
  4. Click Save to create the group set. You can edit group membership at any time.

Please note: It is recommended that you give your Group Sets and Groups a meaningful name (e.g. Module Name and Group Name) as students can often see their groups in their Canvas dashboard as well as within the module so it can help them to find the correct group quickly.