One-on-One Forums

One-on-One Forums

Overview: One-on-One Forums enable instructors to provide interaction and assistance to individual students within a specific online course. Instructors create these forums, usually in Module 0 (the area at the top of the course where the announcements, syllabus and other course resources are located.) One-on-One Forums are a bit different than traditional forums; membership in the forum is created by a Group and Group Set function within Moodle, as shown and described below.

Instructors must create One-on-One Forums and related groups and group sets.  One-on-One forums, groups and group sets are NOT automatically created in Moodle.  NOTE: Students added to the course after creation of the One-on-One forum and groups  must be added individually by the instructor.  See Troubleshooting One-on-One Forums below for directions.

How to create a One-on-One Forum:

Step 1. Set up the One-on-One group set:

  • Go to the MENU> Administration block > Course administration> Users > Groups.
  • Click “Auto-Create Groups”
  • Configure the Auto-create groups:
    > Set “Naming scheme” to “Student @”;
    > Change “Auto create based on” to “Members per group”;
    > SetGroup/member count” to “1”;
    > Set “Select members from role” to “Student”;
    > Click on the “Group set of auto-created groups” and choose One-on-One.  (If you don’t see that option in the drop-down menu, choose New Group Set and type One-on-One in the “Group Set name” field)
 Auto-create Groups setting options

Step 2. Edit the Group Names:

  • The individual groups, named “Student A,” “Student B,” etc. will be displayed on the left hand side of the group page with the group name and “(1)” after it to indicate that each group currently has one member. You may see other groups in this listing as well.
  • Click each group in the “One-on-One” group set to select it; click “Edit group settings” to change the name to the name of the student.
  • NOTE: You do not need to add yourself as the instructor to each group (the instructor is automatically added to all groups).

Step 3. Create the Forum

    • Once the groups are created, return to the main Moodle course page by selecting the course name in the navigation bar at the top of the page and select “Turn editing on” toward the top right.
    • Go to Module 0, select “Add an activity or resource,” and choose “Forum” from the activity drop-down menu. Leave most settings as-is, except those noted below:
      • For Forum name: “One-on-One Support Forums”
      • For Forum introduction: “This forum is for one-on-one support between you and your instructor if you have questions or concerns that you don’t want the entire class to see. These communications may be about personal issues, questions, information, and so forth. Please do not hesitate to use this forum to contact the instructor for assistance.” Feel free to adjust this language to meet your needs.
      • Subscription mode: “Optional”
      • Read Tracking for this forum?: “On”
      • IMPORTANT: under “Common Module settings” > “Group mode” select Separate Groups. Select the “One-on-One” Group set.

    • Select “Save and return to course”

Step 4.Use the Forum:

Once the forum is created, use the drop-down menu in the forum to select the individual you wish to communicate with. Tip: selecting “All participants” will send a message to everyone that is part of any group. Be sure to select the correct individual when communicating with individual students.

Troubleshooting One-on-One Forums

What if there are groups from a previous term that were copied over to the current term course? How do I remove them?

Go to MENU > Administration > Course Administration > Users > Groups.  Select the Groups Sets tab.  Delete any of the existing groups sets from the previous term by selecting the X under the Edits column.
 

How can I be sure that each of my students is a member of one of the One-on-One groups?

Go to MENU > Administration > Course Administration > Users > Enrolled Users.

You will see a list of your students and their associated groups, like so:

How do I create a one-on-one group for an individual student who has not already been set up in a one-on-one group?

When students enroll in the course after the one-on-one groups have been set up, they are not automatically added to groups. The instructor must do the following for each new student:

Go to Administration > Course Administration > Users > Groups

1. Click the Create group button.
   

2. Fill in the Group name. Generally, this will be the student’s name. Save Changes
   

3. Make sure the group is selected; click on the Add/remove users button.
   

4. Select the user from the Potential members list and click the Add button.

Go Back to Groups.
   

5. Select the Group sets tab.

For the One-on-One Group set, click the Show groups in the group set icon.

 

 
   

6. Select the newly created group from the Potential members list on the right; Click the Add button.
   

See Also:

How to Create a Discussion Forum