DCAD Digital Help Guides

Welcome! This video will show you how group formation works, how to set up the tool and how to use it as a student.

First let’s get an overview of the tool. Like with all FeedbackVotes activities, the first thing you’ll see is overall student progress. Here you can track in real time which students have viewed and completed the activity, ensuring that the survey is progressing as intended.

In the second step you can configure groups, manage deadlines, view survey questions and student progress. Once the survey has been completed or when the deadline has arrived, clicking on configure groups brings up a window where you can reference students survey answers and with the form groups button assign each student to groups.

If you’re interested in the specific algorithm we created to facilitate these group allocations there’s an article going into the details in our Help Center.

Once groups are made, manual overrides can be made with the drop-down menus, selecting the desired group for each student. Note that students who have not answered the survey questions will be grouped with other inactive students and where uneven numbers of students result in some students being excluded from automatic grouping, these students will also need to be assigned manually.

Once you’re happy with the group allocations it’s time to publish. To do this click on the publish to LMS button. Do note that the process differs depending on your LMS. You can see our Help Center article for the details on your specific LMS and remember that up at the top with export analytics you can get a download of the groups which can be adjusted to align with the requirements of your LMS for a successful group import. For now let’s move on to see how to configure the activity.

To edit the activity navigate to the top right and press the edit button. In the first step you’ll be able to leave instructions for the assignment to set expectations, for example indicating how students will be grouped or what non-participation means for group allocations. Note that if this step is left blank you won’t be able to publish or save the activity.

In the next step you can determine settings relating to the group formation process itself, namely configuring the survey questions, determining the number of students per group and setting deadlines. Click on view to start adding survey questions. You will arrive at the question card screen and at the bottom clicking on the plus icon allows you to select multiple choice or open questions. Adding a multiple choice question allows for multiple answers to be selected and requires that you determine whether students will be grouped similarly or differently.

Scrolling down we can add more answers with the add answer button and with the bin icon existing answers can be deleted and with the paperclip icon it’s also possible to add an attachment.

Once you’re happy with the question navigate to the top right of the card and click save to confirm your choices. When adding open questions fewer options are available and it’s good to know that responses to these questions are not taken into account in the automatic grouping algorithm. Rather they provide extra context for you to understand the group as a teacher. To edit an existing question card the edit button in the top right opens the editing interface and with the three dot menu you can also delete question cards. Once you’re done navigate to the back arrow in the top left of the screen and you can continue with the configuration.

As a reminder if you want to form groups at a time when students have not progressed with the survey those students will be grouped together and if the group size and class size leaves some students ungrouped you will need to group these left over students manually in the form group dialogue.

If you want to decide when students have access to the activity deadlines can be toggled on. You can determine a start and end date or a general time window for when the survey can be accessed by students and with the grant extensions button on the bottom it’s also possible to grant extensions to individual students.

And that’s it! Once you’re done configuring the activity don’t forget to press save up at the top right corner of the screen and for now let’s see how to navigate the activity as a student. When entering a group formation activity as a student the first thing visible is the instruction step. Directly below you can find the survey and if deadlines have been set these will be visible here along with a timer counting down to when the activity opens and/or closes.

When ready pressing start survey will do exactly that. Within the survey itself it is indicated whether answers to multiple choice questions will result in similar or dissimilar groupings as well as whether multiple answers can be selected. Once answers have been selected it’s important to press submit to confirm your choices. With the skip button at the bottom it’s also possible to skip questions. After all answers have been submitted or skipped the survey will be finished and no more modifications can be made to answers.

Submitting the survey answers is the last step students need to take. Back in the main screen it’s also possible to click on view survey to take another look at the given responses.

And that’s it! Don’t forget that at any time if you need help, get stuck or run into a problem you can use the blue support button in the bottom left to chat to our expert support team at Feedback Fruits directly. We’re available 24 hours a day on weekdays and can respond in a matter of minutes to answer your questions so don’t hesitate to reach out. And for now good luck with your group formation activity!