Bruin Learn - Sections (in Settings)

Sections are a group of students that have been organized for administrative purposes. When users are enrolled in a course, they are actually enrolled in one of the sections of that course. It is possible to place more than one section in course, but it is not possible to put sections within sections. All sections of a course share the same content.

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There are two different ways for instructors to use this tool.

If a course is taught by one or more instructors, sections can remain under one course if each instructor is added to their respective section. Likewise, if an instructor teaches multiple classes in a single quarter (for example, those in the English Writing Program) can have the course content all in one place.

This tool could also be the closest approximation to a CCLE TA site in Bruin Learn. Instructors can create multiple TA sections in a course and assign students to each of them.

The main advantage of this tool is that instructors can make a post in Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, etc. for students in specific sections and prevent those in the other sections from seeing it.

Because users (including the instructor and students) must be in at least one section at all times, a section with the course title has already been created and all users are enrolled in that section by default. However, the default section and a new section don’t overlap. In other words, if you make a post and assign it exclusively to students in a new section, students in the default course section only are not able to see it (although the default course section literally sounds like covering all the contents in the course).

To create a section, you should go to Settings on the left menu bar and choose Section tab. To assign students to any of the sections you have created, you need to go to People on the menu bar and edit each student’s sections (for section enrollment).

One thing to note: Sections tool possibly overlaps what the Group tool does. While Sections can be used for grouping students for permanent purposes throughout the quarter, Group is more for short-time tailored purposes (for example, certain individual assignments or group works).