Groups & Alternative Assessments

You can organize students into groups so they can demonstrate their knowledge while learning to appreciate the perspectives of others. Groups can be tied to assessments but can also be created independently of assessments to encourage collaboration in Blackboard Learn.

🏴This information applies only to Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Create Groups

Select Groups on your course's main page.

If you already have course groups, select New Group Set on the Course Groups page.

From the Group students menu, you can divide your students among groups in the following ways:

• Custom
• Randomly assign
• Self-enrollment
• Reuse groups

You can also select the plus sign to create as many groups as you need and add students.

Create custom groups

You can create one or many custom groups, with any number of students in each group.

• In the Group students menu, select Custom and provide a name at the top of the page.
• Select each student's name one after the other to select them as a group. Select a student's name again to remove the selection.

• After you select the students, open the menu next to one of their names and select Create a new group. You can also move multiple students to a group listed in the menu.

• Edit the group name if you want to change the default naming.
• Provide an optional group description that will appear to group members.

You can select the plus sign wherever you want to add another group.

Create randomly assigned groups

Students can be randomly assigned to the number of groups you choose. You need at least four students so the system can randomly assign two students to at least two groups.

• In the Group students menu, select Randomly assign and provide a name at the top of the page.
• In the Number of groups menu, select how many groups to create. You need to create at least two. Students are equally assigned to the number of groups you choose.

To remove all students from the current group set, select Unassign All at the top of the page. The menu option changes to Custom if you move students to different groups after they're grouped and before you save.

• Edit each group name if you want to change the default naming and provide an optional group description that will appear to that group's members.

Select the plus sign wherever you want to create a group in addition to the groups the system created.

Create self-enrollment groups

You can ask students to self-enroll in course groups. Students receive a course announcement and an activity stream notification about groups they need to join.

You can also add an enrollment period. Students are notified when the enrollment deadline approaches. When the enrollment period ends, students can no longer join groups, and they’re enrolled automatically.

To select Self-enrollment, you must first make the groups visible to students by selecting Visible to students on the top right corner of the New Group Set page.

• In the Group students menu, select Self-enrollment.
• Your students are evenly divided among the groups listed next to Number of groups. You need to create at least two self-enrollment course groups.

• Select the plus sign wherever you want to add another group. The Number of groups updates automatically. You can add and delete groups even after students have started to join. If you delete a group that students have already joined, they’re moved to the unassigned list. You'll need to notify them to join one of the remaining groups or add them to a group. 
• You can add an enrollment start and end date. Select the arrow next to Advanced options to collapse the enrollment section.
• You can change or clear the Maximum number of members per group that appears by default. The optional maximum must be 2 or greater. If you add or delete groups, the maximum number doesn’t update.

To allow unlimited members per group, leave blank. Students see the maximum number allowed when they make their group selections. If you allow an unlimited number per group, students see the total number of students in their class.

You can override the maximum membership for a group. For example, you can add a newly enrolled student to a group.

• Select the Hide enrolled members check box if you don't want students to see who's already joined.
• Edit each group name if you want to change the default naming.
• Add optional group descriptions. You can add information to help students choose a group. You have no limit on the number of characters.
• Open the menu next to a group to access the management options.

Reuse groups

You can reuse an existing course group or group set.

• In the Group students menu, select a title from the Reuse groups section. Groups with no members also appear in the list.
• Provide a name at the top of the page, edit the individual group names, and add optional group descriptions that are shown to group members. You have no limit on the number of characters.

The same students are added to your new group or group set. You may need to add newly enrolled students to your new groups.

Course groups and members

All course groups you've created appear on the Course Groups page. Group sets with no members also appear. At the top of the page, the number of group sets and individual groups are listed.

A. Use Group Set to select a heading to sort your groups or the number of members in ascending or descending order.

B. You can show or hide the groups in a group set.

C. Open a group set's menu to edit or delete the group.

D. View the number of members in each group out of the total number of students in the course.

E. Show group members.

Select Show Members of an individual group to display this group's members on a panel on the right side of the page. This display lists members and indicates which have course accommodations. You can also search for members in a group using the search bar.

Manage Groups

After you create a group or a group set, you can add or delete individual groups and manage student membership.

Manage individual groups

You can also edit group names, add or edit group descriptions, and send messages to your groups to kick off collaboration.

Select the plus sign wherever you want to add a group.

If you no longer need a group, open the group's menu and select Delete group. The students in that group are unassigned automatically and appear at the top of the page. You can manually assign these students to new groups. Or, you can randomly assign all students—not only the students you unassigned—to the number of groups you choose.

Ramifications

• If you add or delete a group in a group set used to create a new group set, the new group set is unaffected.
• If you add or delete a group in a group set that you used to create a group assessment or discussion, that content item’s groups are updated. Edits to group titles and descriptions also affect the content items.
• If you add or delete a group in a group assessment or discussion that's based on a course group set, the course group set is updated. Edits to group titles and descriptions also affect the course group set.
• If you delete a group set used to create a new group set, the new group set is unaffected.
• If you delete an entire group set used to create a group assessment or discussion, the content item’s groups are removed.
• If you delete a group assessment or discussion based on a course group set, the group set is unaffected.

Manage student membership

Open the menu next to a student's name to access these options:

• Start a new group with the student as a member.
• Select Unassign to remove the student from the group. Unassigned students appear at the top of the page.
• Assign the student to a different group that already exists. Select the group's name in the menu. Groups with no members don't appear.

You can also move multiple students to a different group in one action, create a new group for them, or unassign them all from the group. To remove all students from all groups, select Unassign All at the top of the page.

Ramifications:

• Membership changes in a group set affect the content-level items where the groups are used, such as in group discussions and assessments.
• Membership changes in a content-level item based on a course group set affect the course group set.
• Membership changes in a group set do NOT affect other group sets that are based on the group set.

On the New Assignment page, select the Settings icon to open the Assignment Settings panel. Provide a due date and select the settings you want to apply to the group assignment:

• You can allow class conversations for a group assignment. Students can choose between a conversation with the class as a whole or among only their group members.
• You can also choose to collect submissions offline that don't require groups to upload submissions. You can add instructions, files, a rubric, and goals so the groups can prepare for the offline work. You can also enable conversations for offline work.
• You can issue an access code to control when groups may submit a group assignment. At this time, access codes are generated randomly by the system. You can't customize the access codes.

Select Assign to groups.

For a specific group assignment or group test, you can give an individual group an exception for extended access only. Multiple attempts aren't allowed for group assessments at this time.

More on group exceptions

Group Assessment

After groups submit their assignments, you can access their work from the gradebook or assignment. You can assign the same grade to the whole group or grade each group member's contribution separately.

From the Submissions page, select a group name to start grading:

From a group's submission, you can navigate to other groups with the previous and next arrows.

• To view the group members, expand the group.
• View which member submitted on behalf of the group.

Select the feedback button to open the feedback panel. You can scroll through the assignment and provide a grade.

• Add overall feedback for the group on the Group tab.
• Select the Individual tab and add feedback for each student within the group.

You can also embed an audio/video recording of your feedback in the editor as you grade group submissions.

View and edit feedback

Expand the member list to view feedback for individual members. Open the menu and select Edit Feedback to delete or make changes to feedback for the group or individual members. If you make changes after you post grades, students aren't notified about the updated or deleted feedback.

Student View:

Students are notified in the Activity Stream, when the group grade is posted. If you provided group feedback, it appears with the grade. Students can select the group assignment title to open their Course Grades page to access all their grades.

Students can access their group and individual feedback if provided.

Assign different grades to group members

By default, all group members receive the same grade for a group assignment. However, you can change individual group members' grades if you feel their contributions earned grades different from the group.

On the Submissions page, you can assign a grade for the whole group. Type a value in the Grade column. The grade is labeled as Override because you didn't assign the grade from the actual submission.

To assign a different grade to an individual member, expand the group list and enter a value in that member's Grade column. The overall group's grade is shown as In Progress and the Post option doesn't appear because some students don't have grades for the assignment.

After you assign a grade to the overall group, you can edit a group member's individual grade. Expand the list of group members and change an individual grade as needed. The overall group's grade appears as Multiple. The individual member's grade is labeled as Override.

More on override grades

You can also assign different grades in the gradebook grid view.

• Select a group member's cell and all other group members are highlighted in the grid.
• Edit a group member's grade as needed.
• You have the option to apply this edited grade to everyone in the group.

Move group members after grading

You can move students between groups.

• New members can access the work the group has saved up to that point.
• New group members can also submit work on behalf of the group.

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When students with existing grades are moved to different groups, their grades move with them, but their work doesn’t.

• New group members keep their existing grades. Their grades won’t apply to the rest of the group. However, if you haven't graded the new group's work, the new member receives their new group's grade when it's assigned.

Group assessment exceptions

You can give an exception to a group to allow multiple submission attempts or to extend their due date, even if the group assessment is hidden from other groups. Because extensions are assigned to groups individually, you can set different due dates or number of attempts for each group.

From a group assessment's Submissions page, select Add or edit exceptions for the group.  You can also add exceptions from a group's individual submission page.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment options are available for tests and assignments, even if they are already graded.

When you create or edit an assessment, select Formative assessment under the settings panel. This will automatically select Display formative label to students. If you unmark this option, no formative indicator is displayed to students in any section.

Formative assessments are included in the gradebook calculations by default, but you can edit the grade calculations and exclude the formative assessments.

Excluding an item from grade calculations 

The formative label helps to easily identify formative assessments. This label is always visible for instructors in these areas:

• Course content page
• Test and assignment settings
• Gradebook list and grid views
• Student overview
• Student activity overview

If you choose to display the formative label for students, it is visible for them in these areas:

• Course content page
• Assessment panel before starting an attempt
• Assessment details & information panel during and after an assessment
• Assessment header when viewing a submission
• Gradebook

Gradebook filters temporarily narrow the displayed data in the gradebook grid view. You can use the formative and summative filters to show the corresponding assessments.

In the gradebook grid view, select the Filters button to open the filters panel. Under Assessment type, select the formative option to display only the formative assessments.

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Only the formative label is displayed in the gradebook grid view, even if you apply the summative filter.

Authentic Assessment

You can use advanced AI to help create assessments by generating assignment prompts based on Bloom’s Taxonomy that can encourage students to do the following:

• engage in higher-order thinking
• apply knowledge gained from your class
• produce authentic submissions that are evidenced
• emulate real-world situations

Assignment prompts are generated based on course context. On the assignment creation page, select Auto-generate assignment.

The AI Design Assistant generates three assignment prompts. You have several ways to define the prompts that the AI Design Assistant generates.

• Enter a description (limited to 2000 characters) to narrow the focus of the prompts
• Select the desired cognitive level:
• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Inspire me! provides you with a mix of levels
• Adjust the complexity of the prompts’ focus by moving the slider
• Select whether or not you want to generate a title for the prompts

Once you’ve finalized your settings, select Generate. Review each prompt for accuracy and bias. Choose the prompt you’d like to add to your assignment, then select Add.

Self and Peer Assessment

Qualitative peer review can be enabled for an Assignment and has the following features:

• Set different due dates for the initial assignment submission and the completion of peer review: Instructors can set how many reviews are expected from each student. Peers are assigned randomly and automatically.
• Late submitters and reviewers remain part of the task and can continue to participate: Instructors can clearly see who was late.
• Tracking: Instructors can track students’ progress toward completion.
• Rubrics: Instructors can grade using a rubric. Optionally, students can see the rubric that will used for the grade.

When grading, the instructor can see all this information in a single view: the student’s submission, feedback provided by the students’ peers, and the feedback the current student gave to their peers.

• Anonymous mode for students: The identities of peers are hidden from students but viewable by instructors.
• Censoring: Instructors can hide reviews deemed inappropriate or harmful.

Instructors can access the submissions reviewed by a student right from that student's grading panel. They can easily select a specific submission and grade a student’s review in context.

Student View:

Students also have direct access to the submissions available for their review from either the Due Date or the Calendar views. This makes it easier for them to act when reviewing their pending tasks.

More on how students Submit Assignments with Qualitative Peer Review.

There are some relevant use cases that are planned as future improvements, including the following:

• Quantitative peer reviews: While a peer can view a rubric for guidance on providing feedback, the rubric can’t be used by students to provide a score.
• Non-anonymous mode for students: Names of peers are always hidden from students. If an instructor wants students to know who they evaluate, it is necessary to request students to add their names to their submissions.
• Multiple prompts with essay questions: Only a single text prompt is supported for an Assignment with Peer Review. If there are multiple topics to which s student is to respond and receive feedback, those should all be outlined in a single prompt or broken up into several assignments.
• Separate grades for students’ submissions and their reviews: In this release, there is a single grade and rubric for an assignment. If the instructor wishes to communicate different scores for those two parts of the process, those can be outlined in the feedback.