Unable to see links, discussion board, and groups

Problem: The user is unable to see links, discussion board, and groups when she is in the student view; she is also unable to make them viewable for the students.

This usually occurs because the Tools are hidden. Some of the content buttons on the left side of the course rely on some of the tools being available in order to function (for example, the 'Announcements' section points to the Announcements tool, and the "Instructor Info" button points to the "Contacts" tool). Since the tools that they rely on are hidden, the content of some of the buttons are no longer available. 

Solution: The trick to fixing this is to temporarily turn on the Tools section again, enable the visibility of the tools, and then hide the Tools button itself from the left side of the course so that the students can't see it. You may selectively hide or show course menu items on the left side of the course to students by using the chevron menu and toggling "show" and "hide". 

Here's a video showing how to add the Tools button back, enable the internal tools, and then hide the Tools button again so the students can't see it. This will have the effect of re-enabling some of the sections that the students were having trouble seeing because the tools they rely on were hidden- http://screencast.com/t/gqWwj99H