Mixing Groups Systematically

Back in teacher's college one of my professors introduced me to a system for arranging groups of students in a class of 30. It was designed so that each student would have a chance to work with every other student once, but would never work with the same student twice. After the thrill of baring witness to such an elegant system subsided, I decided I could make it a little better. So a few years ago I had a go at applying the same concept to classes of different sizes. More recently I used some recently acquired skills in Sheets to make the system a bit more user friendly. The end result is three separate sheets that can be used for groups of 9-18, 20-24, and 25-28 students.

How to use it:

1. Enter the student's names on the first tab.
2. Click on the tab that is closest to the number of students in your class without going under, and which corresponds to the desired group size. For example, if I had 14 students in a class and wanted groups of three, I would choose the tab called '3s out of 15'. *
3. Choose a mix number using the dropdown box in the left hand corner to change the groups.
4. OPTIONAL - Assign roles to students by typing them into the grey boxes underneath the mix number.

Jumble Chart 9-18 Students
Jumble Chart 20-24 Students
Jumble Chart 25-28 Students

* Note: One of my goals was for students to never be in a group with the same person twice, because of some complicated maths, there are only certain combinations of class size and group number that work.