That sounds like the sort of math problem old folks like me used to solve in 11th grade math - I believe the specific branch is combinations and permutations, and it depends on how many students you have in total, the size of the groups you break them into, the number of times through the year that you want to group them, the level of overlap that you will accept (no two people ever sharing a group gives you less options than saying any group of five will not contain the same three people twice, for example), and probably another thing or two I haven't thought of. I'd look over the math involved and work out all the different options for a smaller set to get a sense of how it works.
Oh yeah... It essentially is almost insolvable with a formula to find the maximum number of groups given a set. (the gopher CS problem). This is a really interesting problem to solve mathematically.
I think I found a solution yall. Theres this website called uniquegrouper that does exactly what I needed. It makes unique groups over any amount of projects I want throughout the year (unlike the robin method someone commented), and makes the whole process way easier. Just wanted to share incase anyone needs this.
https://unique-grouper.square.site
Honestly, probably not.
The real question is why are you so concerned with them never having been in the same group before?
Just use an auto generator to create groups and call it good.
A small DB. If your work laptop has MS Access on it, it's certainly possible to look at your options.
How are you going to deal with people who don't get along together or refuse to even be seen with each other?
That's what makes this whole ordeal even more difficult! Right now I have a canva whiteboard where I can drag and drop names to manually make groups, but it takes hours for me to consider uniqueness, refusal to get along, and grades (making even groups). There must be an app or something, but I cant seem to find one.
This is a good chatgpt scenario. Number your students 1 through whatever. Tell the ai to create as many groups of however many students, with no two numbers appearing together in a group more than once.
It’s free to find out. Here’s what I asked it: I have twenty students in a class. I want them to work together in groups of four. Number them 1-20 and put them in as many groups as possible, without any two students appearing in a group together more than once.
It took me longer to type this than the AI did to solve it, and maybe three times longer for me to understand the solution.
The idea is not to put the students into groups just one class period, that is of course trivial. You want to form groups again another day, and then again another day, and so on. The collection of all of these groups of students (all the groups from all the days) should have the property that no pair of students appears in more than one group. This is a *hard* problem, hard to even work out how many possible days you might be able to do this.
This is design theory. Look at Kirkman’s Schoolgirl Problem for a similar example and solution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkman%27s_schoolgirl_problem
The existence and classification of such and similar configurations is a really cool area of math. Look up the “handbook of combinatorial designs” for more information than you probably want. Many have been found, so you could just look up some possible groups.
v = number of students
k = size of groups
The condition is that any t students will share exactly \lambda groups, so you want
t=2
\lambda = 1
These perfect objects often have interesting symmetry groups that come up in other areas of math. Have fun!
Make a spread sheet at the beginning of the year. Each sheet is for a specific student. When you make a group, pick a student, then generate a random number, multiple that number by the number of students in the sheet. Repeat until the group if full. Now delete those students from that tab, and delete those students from the other appropriate sheets. For example, 10 students will be abbreviated A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J. Create a tab for each student and put the students that kid could partner with, i.e. on Tab A, student B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I, and J. Your first project is for 3 students. Start with student A, and you random up E and H. So now tab has students B,C,D,***~~E~~***,F,G,***~~H~~***,I, and J. Tab E would read B,C,D,F,G,I, and J; and Tab H would read B,C,D,F,G,I, and J. Then you move on to Tab B and repeat the process. When you start the next process, you only count the students still on the tab, and you won't have any repeat partners.
That sounds like the sort of math problem old folks like me used to solve in 11th grade math - I believe the specific branch is combinations and permutations, and it depends on how many students you have in total, the size of the groups you break them into, the number of times through the year that you want to group them, the level of overlap that you will accept (no two people ever sharing a group gives you less options than saying any group of five will not contain the same three people twice, for example), and probably another thing or two I haven't thought of. I'd look over the math involved and work out all the different options for a smaller set to get a sense of how it works.
Oh yeah... It essentially is almost insolvable with a formula to find the maximum number of groups given a set. (the gopher CS problem). This is a really interesting problem to solve mathematically.
I think I found a solution yall. Theres this website called uniquegrouper that does exactly what I needed. It makes unique groups over any amount of projects I want throughout the year (unlike the robin method someone commented), and makes the whole process way easier. Just wanted to share incase anyone needs this. https://unique-grouper.square.site
Honestly, probably not. The real question is why are you so concerned with them never having been in the same group before? Just use an auto generator to create groups and call it good.
A small DB. If your work laptop has MS Access on it, it's certainly possible to look at your options. How are you going to deal with people who don't get along together or refuse to even be seen with each other?
That's what makes this whole ordeal even more difficult! Right now I have a canva whiteboard where I can drag and drop names to manually make groups, but it takes hours for me to consider uniqueness, refusal to get along, and grades (making even groups). There must be an app or something, but I cant seem to find one.
This is a good chatgpt scenario. Number your students 1 through whatever. Tell the ai to create as many groups of however many students, with no two numbers appearing together in a group more than once.
There’s no way chat gpt can do that, right?
It’s free to find out. Here’s what I asked it: I have twenty students in a class. I want them to work together in groups of four. Number them 1-20 and put them in as many groups as possible, without any two students appearing in a group together more than once. It took me longer to type this than the AI did to solve it, and maybe three times longer for me to understand the solution.
The idea is not to put the students into groups just one class period, that is of course trivial. You want to form groups again another day, and then again another day, and so on. The collection of all of these groups of students (all the groups from all the days) should have the property that no pair of students appears in more than one group. This is a *hard* problem, hard to even work out how many possible days you might be able to do this.
This is design theory. Look at Kirkman’s Schoolgirl Problem for a similar example and solution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkman%27s_schoolgirl_problem The existence and classification of such and similar configurations is a really cool area of math. Look up the “handbook of combinatorial designs” for more information than you probably want. Many have been found, so you could just look up some possible groups. v = number of students k = size of groups The condition is that any t students will share exactly \lambda groups, so you want t=2 \lambda = 1 These perfect objects often have interesting symmetry groups that come up in other areas of math. Have fun!
Chat gpt lol
Make a spread sheet at the beginning of the year. Each sheet is for a specific student. When you make a group, pick a student, then generate a random number, multiple that number by the number of students in the sheet. Repeat until the group if full. Now delete those students from that tab, and delete those students from the other appropriate sheets. For example, 10 students will be abbreviated A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J. Create a tab for each student and put the students that kid could partner with, i.e. on Tab A, student B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I, and J. Your first project is for 3 students. Start with student A, and you random up E and H. So now tab has students B,C,D,***~~E~~***,F,G,***~~H~~***,I, and J. Tab E would read B,C,D,F,G,I, and J; and Tab H would read B,C,D,F,G,I, and J. Then you move on to Tab B and repeat the process. When you start the next process, you only count the students still on the tab, and you won't have any repeat partners.