Creators: Caryn Sever and Kim Grewe, Northern Virginia Community College
Students are often disappointed with discussion boards. They tend to post the same thing and respond with “I like your post.” Many discussion boards fail to create community. In part, this is because there are too many posts to read resulting in shallow comments. However, using groups in Canvas can help to create more intimate discussions with smaller groups of students.
Group discussions allow students to dive into the content and have more meaningful discussions in smaller groups where they may feel more comfortable opening up and discussing the material. Some instructors choose to develop a larger discussion topic in the main discussion area and ask groups to choose a representative to post their individual group perspectives.
Here is an excellent one-pager on group work in general and some tips and tricks about group discussions: Using Groups to Collaborate in Canvas.
Here is a video on How to Create Groups in Canvas. Here are links to directions on creating groups and group sets in Canvas for a refresher: How do I manually create a group in Canvas