Group and collaborative assignments

Work collaboratively on a shared diagram is the third student work type, and the only one where the class does not end up with a diagram each. Students build one diagram together, live, and that diagram is submitted once and graded once — either as a whole class, or in small groups that the students form themselves.

This page follows one collaborative assignment all the way through: how you set it up, what your students see when they open it, and what changes on your side once the roster is made of groups instead of names.

Choosing how students work together

The work type is step 2 of the assignment wizard, Student work. Pick Work collaboratively on a shared diagram and the card asks one more question — How should students work together?

• All together (1) — One class diagram. Everyone in the class edits the same diagram, and there is nothing for students to choose when they open the assignment.
• In groups (2) — Smaller teams. One diagram per group, and a Group size (3) in students per group — three by default. All together has no size field, because the group is the class.

The card’s Starting template stays (optional) here: leave it blank and every group starts from an empty diagram, or add one and each group gets its own copy of it to work in. Create an assignment covers the rest of the wizard — the instructions, the due date, the grading scale and the class.

Caution

The work type and the grouping freeze as soon as one student starts. Step 2 then explains itself and goes read-only: At least one student has already started this assignment, so the way students complete it can no longer be changed. Deciding between All together and In groups, and settling on a group size, is therefore worth doing before you publish — the title, the instructions, the due date and the grading scale all stay editable afterwards.

How groups form

You do not assign the groups. On an In groups assignment the students do it themselves, in whatever order they open the assignment, and the side of their page that would normally hold a start button holds Join a group instead.

The first student to arrive has nothing to join.

No groups yet — You’re first here. Start a group and your classmates can join you. Start a new group creates the group and drops them straight into its diagram; there is no naming step and no invitation to send. Groups are simply Group 1, Group 2 and so on, and each student sees those names in their own language.

Everyone after that gets the list.

Each row is a group, with the avatars of its members and how full it is. Clicking a row expands it to show who is in it by name.

• A group that has reached the size you set reads 2 / 2 · Full and its button is Full (1) — it cannot be joined.
• Any group with room has a Join button (2), which puts the student into that group’s diagram.
• Start a new group (3) is always there, so a class can end up with more groups than you expected, or fewer.

Info

A group also closes once it has handed its work in: its row then reads 2 / 2 · Submitted with a Submitted button, whether or not it was full. And joining is a one-way step — a student who is in a group has no button for leaving it or moving to another one, so it is worth saying out loud in class who is working with whom before anybody clicks.

On an All together assignment none of this appears. There is one diagram for the class, so students get the plain Start assignment button, and their group is called Whole class.

Working on the shared diagram

Once a student is in a group, the summary chips and the strip under them say so.

You’re working (1) reads With Group 1 instead of On your own, and Your diagram reads Shared diagram. Your group · Group 1 (2) lists the members, with the student themselves shown as You.

The action card is the group’s, not theirs.

The thumbnail is the group’s shared diagram, so everyone in the group sees the same picture of the work so far, and the label beside the status pill says Group submission.

1. Continue shared diagram opens the diagram — the same one, for every member, at the same time. Collaborating on mind maps covers what that looks like while two people are typing.
2. Submit for the group hands the whole group’s work in: Submitting sends the whole group’s diagram. Any member can submit.
3. Restart for the group replaces the diagram with a fresh one.

Caution

Restart for the group is not personal. It deletes the diagram the group has been building and starts a new one, for everybody in it — the dialog’s own title is the warning, and the checkbox I understand this cannot be undone is there because it cannot. On a name-and-PIN account the old diagram is not recoverable from Trash either; it is deleted immediately. If only part of the diagram is wrong, edit that part.

Discussion with your teacher carries a Group tag on a collaborative assignment, and the box students type into says Message your teacher & group… — one thread per group, so a reply you write reaches every member of it.

Handing the group’s work in

Any member can submit, and it happens straight away.

The card then names who did it and when — Submitted by … · today (1) — and everybody in the group sees that same line. Unsubmit for the group (2) reopens the work for all of them, and View shared diagram still opens the diagram.

What you see while they work

The assignment page you know from an individual assignment changes shape: the roster stops being a list of students and becomes a list of groups.

1. The bar over the roster counts groups now — 2 groups · code 2Y78h. The four counters above it still count students, which is why Submitted can read 2/3 while both groups are accounted for.
2. A row is a group: its name, the avatars of its members and their first names, then the group’s status and last activity.
3. Review at the end of the row opens the group’s shared diagram — View work while they are still going.

Groups appear in the roster as students create them, and the Recent activity feed logs the joining too, one entry per student. On an All together assignment the roster shows a single Whole class row for the students who have started, and keeps a row of their own for anybody who has not opened the assignment yet.

Reviewing and grading a group

A group’s review page is the same page as a student’s — the diagram on the left with its change player, the rail on the right — with one block added and one grade to give.

Contributors counts the members who have actually worked on the diagram and lists them, and points out where the detail is: Per-person contributions are visualized in the diagram’s History view. Stepping through the change player is how you tell who built what, since every topic is tagged with the initials of whoever added it.

There is one grade for the group. Fill in the score and the feedback exactly as you would for one student, and the banner confirms who it went to: Grade saved & released to group. Edit grade and Remove work the same as anywhere else, and the grade shows against the group’s row in the roster. Reviewing and grading student work covers the grade box, the scales and the discussion thread in full.

The students get it the moment you save it.

Their Teacher feedback block is headed Group grade and spells out that it is not just theirs — Shared with all members — with your feedback underneath. Assignments for students is the whole assignment page from their side.

Seeing it their way first

Group formation is the part of a collaborative assignment you cannot rehearse with a class, so the assignment’s ⋯ menu has View as student. It opens the student page in a read-only preview — Previewing as a student · Read-only · actions are inert — and steps through the five states with the arrows in its bar: First in and Choose a group for the two group-formation screens, then In progress, Submitted and Graded. Esc or Back to teacher view returns you.

Where to go next

• Create an assignment — the three steps around the work type.
• Reviewing & grading — the review page, the grading scales and exporting the class’s grades.
• Assignments for students — the same assignment from a student’s point of view.
• Collaborating on mind maps — several people editing one diagram at once.