What Is It?
Definitions of “small” vary, but by “small group discussions” we mean any discussions where you’re subdividing a larger class into smaller groups to make the discussion more effective, engaging, or social. You could be using groups of 3-5 (especially if this is more like a group project) or your small groups could be as big as 15. Either way, you’ve chosen to carve out smaller groups from the larger class.
Why Use Small Group Discussions
- Some studies show that an increased experience of “social presence” is small group discussions online.
- Other studies show higher levels of participation in small group discussions online.
- Larger groups may be more prone to “information overload” and “social loafing” (students putting in less effort when others are present to do the work for them), according to research.
Watch Our Half-hour Webinar on Small Group Discussions
How to Set Up Small Group Discussions
For Canvas Users
Follow the instructions in Setting Group Visibility in Harmonize (Canvas).
For Blackboard Users
Follow the instructions in Blackboard: Groups Sets & Groups.
For Brightspace and Moodle Users
The "Groups" visibility setting is not available for Brightspace and Moodle users. You can manually divide a discussion into smaller groups by doing the following:
- Create a separate post for each group.
- Instruct students to post all comments as replies to their group's post.
- For added clarity, you can make the student names the title for the post or put their names in an image that you use as the cover image.
- For fun, you can have students create group names and images to use on the cards for their posts.
General Tips and Strategies
Choose Group Size Carefully.
Smaller groups increase social presence and encourage greater participation. But if the group is too small, students will suffer if even one student chooses not to participate (or participates only at the last minute). Additionally, knowledge construction can function better with more students to contribute and share insights. Group sizes in the 10-14 range work well in many situations.
Pro Tip: Milestones encourage students to make regular contributions to discussions, which can be especially helpful with smaller groups.
Decide to maintain or rotate groups between discussions.
Do you want to keep the same groups or change it up? Both approaches have advantages. When you maintain groups, students have longer to recognize each other and form a community. They can get comfortable and really connect with each other. On the other hand, rotating groups will expose students to different points of view. For a middle ground, you could maintain groups for a few weeks before switching.
Consider providing group roles.
Sometimes students are more successful if they’re given a particular role in a discussion. For example, a student “Leader” or “Facilitator” might help move the discussion along. Students could also have roles as a Questioner, Theoretician, Challenger, Champion, Starter, Connector, Summarizer, or more. Consider assigning roles or let students choose. Decide whether or not you want to rotate roles: students might prefer, and even be better at, some roles than others, but it can also benefit students to try on new roles and gain those skills.
Pro Tip: You can learn more about assigning a facilitator role in The Power of Student Facilitation. See the articles listed in Further Reading to learn more about specific roles.
Flip the switch: change groups within the same discussion.
Harmonize allows you to change visibility within the same discussion without affecting the existing posts. This means you could hold small group discussions but then change visibility so everyone could view all the posts. Or you could try the jigsaw method, rearranging students into different groups for their second round of posts. Or you could have students answer questions individually before being placed into their small groups.
Pro Tip: If you choose this option, please explain to students exactly how it will work in advance. You don’t want to expose students’ posts to a different audience if they didn’t know that would happen when they wrote the posts.
Further Reading
- “Impact of role assignment and group size on asynchronous online discussion: An experimental study” by Luo et. al
- “Increasing Social Presence in Online Learning through Small Group Discussions” by Mete Akcaoglu and Eunbae Lee
- “Is the Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts? A Comparison of Small Group and Whole Class Discussion Board Activity in Online Courses” by Catherine A. Bliss and B. Lawrence
- “Structuring Asynchronous Discussion Groups by Introducing Roles: Do Students Act in Line with Assigned Roles?” by Bram De Wever, T. Schellens, and M. Valcke
- “Effective Asynchronous Discussions” from the IUI Center for Teaching and Learning