Moodle has three Group modes available for individual activities,or as course-wide settings.

No groups - There are no groups. All students can participates in the activity.

Visible Groups - Group members interact with their own group, but can also view work from other groups (e.g, students can read, but not reply to another group's Forum posts).

Separate Groups - Group members can only see activity made within their own group.

Group mode is most commonly used for the following activities:

Announcements: Select a single group or grouping to send an Announcement to

Discussion forums: Use a single discussion forum, but discussion topics can only be accessed, or participated in by certain groups or groupings.

Assignments: One member of a group submits on behalf of everyone. Each student in that group recieves the same grade and feedback. 

Set a Default Group Mode for Your Course

Course Leaders/editing teachers etc can set the default group mode for activities within the course in the course settings. When you set the default for the entire course, each activity will show the default mode, however you can still change the group mode for individual activities.

1. Click on the main settings cog wheel, top-right of your Moodle course space and choose 'Edit settings'.

2. Choose the required 'Group mode' (as per choices above) and whether you wish to 'Force this group mode' to each activitiy, meaning group mode settings at each activity level are ignored, and overwritten by the choice you make here.

Turn on Group mode at activity level

1. Click on the 'edit' button to the right-hand side of the activity, and choose 'edit settings'.

2. Scroll down the settings page to 'Common Module Settings' and from the 'Group mode' drop-down menu, choose the required group mode using the drop-down menu.