Aspen My Groups - Create your own Groups within a Class!

You may remember I announced the activation of My Groups in Aspen a few weeks ago.  My Groups allows you to see only students in a specified class while viewing the Student List located in GradeBook view>Student top tab.

With My Groups activated, teachers now have additional features they can take advantage of.  You can select a subset of students within a class, name the subset, and this teacher created-group is now available for selection in the Student top tab>Student list!

Why would I want to create my own Groups?

If you want to find information for a specific subset of your students over time, then you should consider creating your own group! 

You teach the same class and have multiple sections combined:

When Aspen creates My Groups, it automatically combines all sections of the same course.  If you want to have visibility for students in discrete sections, you can create a My Group for an individual section.  

Students on IEP's & 504 Plans:

Many teachers like to keep close tabs on the overall academic progress of their students with IEP's and 504's, monitoring how they are doing in other courses and what courses they are taking. 

Course Recommendations:

If you have a course with a mix of Juniors and Seniors, you can create a group of Juniors only.  This allows you to navigate from student to student to find the information you need to inform your course recommendation decision, without seeing students you don't need to evaluate!

Any reason that makes sense to you will do!

How do I create my own Groups?

While in GradeBook view, navigate to your Class list and select a course.

Click on the Groups side tab.

Enter the name of the subgroup you would like to create in the box, and click +Add Group.

You will see the created group without any students added:

Simply drag the photos of the students you want to appear in this group:

Navigate to the Student top tab, click the filter and select My Groups.

You now have the option to select the newly created group.

Once you click OK, Aspen will reload the student list and show only those students who are members of the Group!

Once you click on an individual student, you can use the handy arrows located at the top right of the student record to navigate to the next student!

My Groups created by Aspen (like your class roster!) are Dynamic. 
They automatically change as students enter/leave your classroom.

My Groups created by You are Static. 
If the group members need to change for any reason, you will need to navigate to GradeBook top tab>Individual course>Group side tab to edit the group membership!