Title: Instructions to use "Working in a Group"
Course: Reference Course Group Work > Section: Instructions

Working in a Group is a tool in Canvas developed at Karlstad university by the Rethink:Kau project. The purpose of Working in a Group is to give teachers and students a tool for digitally managing writing a contract and assigning roles in courses that use group work as an educational form.

Prerequisites

In order to use Working in group, the teacher needs to activate the tool in the course settings. Under the Navigation tab, Working in group should be relocated up to the active part and saved.

The teacher also needs to divide the students into groups. This is done under People in the course menu, where the teacher creates a new group set, or uses an existing one, and creates the groups in which the students will work. A student in each group must be appointed "group leader" responsible for editing in the tool for each group respectively. This student is called "editor" in the tool  and the name of the student is displayed in the upper right in the tool.

The tool is divided into five functions and represented in the form of five tabs. These are described in detail below.

1. Working in Group
2. Write Contract
3. Define roles
4. Assign roles
5. Approve and Verify

Working in Group

In the tab Working in group there are learning and practice materials for group work. Here is also this instruction.

Write Contract

Every student in the group and the teachers may see what is being done in the "Write Contract" tab, but only the student appointed by the teacher as editor can write in the contract box. The contract may be written on the basis of instructions given by the teacher or on the basis of a contract template available in the tool. Make sure to use the "Save" button when the contract is written, so that the text is not lost when the focus is shifted to other parts of Working in group. The contract box is prefilled by default with the template.

Define Roles

This tab is used to discuss what roles should be in the group, what it means to have the role and what workload is expected in relation to the whole group work.

Role: A task in the group work that spans over time.

Responsibilities: The responsibilities of the role, what is required of the person holding the role.

Expected workload: Initially, one person has a total of 10 markers in the expected workload. Here, by marking markers, you indicate how much of the total workload is expected for the defined role.

When the roles are defined and accepted in the group, they should be entered into the tool.

New role

Use the "Add Role" button to enter the role information in the right column; the name of the role, a description and expected workload. Click on the "Save" button when all information is completed. The new role is then listed in the left column.

Remove role

If a saved role is not to be used, you can delete it by selecting the role in the list and then clicking on the "Delete role" button.

Assign Roles

When all roles are defined and saved, they should be assigned to the group members. This is done under the "Assign Roles" tab. Roles can be randomly assigned to a group member or being assigned to a selected member. Assigned roles are listed under each member in the "Assigned Roles" box at the bottom of the page.

Randomly assign roles

To randomly assign a role in the group, a role must first be selected in the list on the left. Also make sure no member is selected in the right column, if a member is selected click on the member and the selection will disappear. Finally click the "Random" button and the role is randomly assigned to one of the group members. You can see which group member got the role in the "Assigned roles" box on the bottom of the page.

Manually assign role

To manually assign a role in the group, a role must be selected in the list on the left and a member selected in the list on the right. Then click the "Assign" button and the role is assigned to the selected group member. You can see which group member got the role in the "Assigned roles" box on the bottom of the page.

Assigned roller

The "Assigned roles" box shows which role(s) each group member has. You also see the total workload (orange markers) that the roles mean for each member in relation to the total expected workload (orange and blue markers) for each group member. If a group member does not want to have an assigned role, you can undo it by clicking on the cross symbol after the role and it will disappear from the group member.

Too high workload

If a group member is assigned multiple roles and the total workload of those roles exceeds the total expected workload of a team member (ten markers), it will be visualized by showing all ten markers as red. This can be handled by removing one or more roles from the group member, or by adjusting the expected workload of the defined role.

Approve and verify

In the last part of Working in a Group the group members approve on what has been decided on contracts and roles and the teacher may also verify that he or she has taken part in the students' work.

For the student who is a editor

In order for all members to approve and the teacher to verify, the appointed editor needs to lock contract and roles for editing. To do so, click the "Lock" button in the "Lock editing" box at the top of the "Approve and Verify" tab.

If and when the group needs to make changes to contract or roles, the editor needs to unlock the approvals. This is done with the "Unlock" button, seen in the "Unlock editing" box located at the bottom of the page as long as the tool is locked for editing.

For all students

Before the tool is locked, the team members cannot approve contract and roles and this is indicated by a message that the editor must lock editing.

When the tool is locked for editing, all group members can approve contract and assigned roles. To do this, chech the check box in the "Approvals" box.

All approvals are marked behind each group member in the "Approvals" box.

Before the teacher verifies that he or she has taken part of contract and roles, this is displayed as a message.

When the teacher has verified that he or she has taken part of contract and roles, this is displayed as a message.

For teachers

Before the tool is locked, the teacher cannot verify that he or she has taken part of the students' work and this is shown by a message that the editor must lock for editing.

When the tool is locked for editing, the teacher can verify that he or she has taken part of contract and roles in the current group.