For account administrators
Do you have staff members who need to keep track of their own set of learners across all the training and learning Paths they're taking?
Now, with Mentor Groups, you can create groups of learners within your community and assign mentors who can track their progress, review their work, select a next path from the library for them to take, and provide one-on-one guidance across everything they're learning - even in courses they're not personally teaching!
Common ways to use Mentor Groups
If you've never used a mentor model before, here are a few starter ideas:
Engage your team's experts: invite your team's leaders and experts to mentor team members as they learn new skills.
Offer 1:1 coaching: offer personal coaching and feedback (perhaps as a premium subscription option) in addition to or instead of teacher-led courses.
Create a competency-based education program. Instead of a traditional course or semester-based approach, design your paths to teach specific skills and knowledge expertise. Then, use the mentor features to help each learner take a unique path through all the skills instead of moving along with a cohort or schedule.
Create new Mentor Groups
As an Administrator, you can create a new Group in two places:
The "Manage" button on your Home > People screen.
Your School Dashboard > Community > Groups.
From Home > People
From your Home screen, switch to the People tab.
Select the "Manage" button in the upper right corner.
On the Community screen that pops up, select the Groups tab.
Select "New group" and choose a name for your group. You can optionally adjust the other settings. When ready, click "Create." Now you're ready to add members.
From Community > Groups
Open your account-wide Community from the Admin Dashboard or from the main menu.
On the Community screen that pops up, select the Groups tab.
Select "New group" and choose a name for your group. Optionally adjust the other settings. When ready, click "Create." Now you're ready to add members.
Create Sub-Groups
Any Mentor Group may optionally contain Sub-Groups (and those can also contain Sub-Groups!). A Sub-Group works exactly like a Mentor Group, but nested under another Mentor Group.
Sub-Groups are primarily useful for organizing who can see progress and review work for to various learners within your organization. Here are a few examples where Sub-Groups can be helpful:
Groups: Departments
Sub-Groups: Teams
Groups: Geographic Regions
Sub-Groups: Organizations in Regions
Groups: Relationship Role (e.g., Academic Mentor, Local Mentor,...)
Sub-Groups: Mentors & Learners
Groups: Marketing Segment
Sub-Groups: Organizations in Segment or Sub-Segments
Tip: Any Member may be in more than one Group or Sub-Group, so you can use multiple organization strategies depending on your needs.
Mentor Group roles
Each Group has three member roles:
Members are anyone who you'd like to coach, tutor, or personally guide across all the learning paths they take. They can accept invitations to join a group, but otherwise they won't see any indication that they belong to a particular group.
Mentors can customize the personal learning path for a learner by adding new Paths for them based on their individual needs. They'll be able to select from public Paths and Paths that they are teaching or editing. They'll also be able to discuss learners' projects, assessments, and other items marked for review and they can (optionally) provide the final review as well. Mentors can also add members to their Mentor Group if they are also teaching them in a cohort. Mentors receive in-app and email notifications whenever a member submits a step that's marked for review, even if they aren't a teacher or moderator for the cohort. They can also opt into a weekly digest email.
Group Admins can invite Members, Mentors, and additional Group Admins to any Mentor Group they manage, edit their group settings, and create new nested groups. They can also customize the personal learning path for a learner by adding new Paths for them based on their individual needs, and they'll be able to select from public Paths and Paths they have permission to edit. They won't be automatically notified to review assignments, but they can optionally review assignments and leave feedback if they wish, and can opt into the weekly digest email.
Add members to Mentor Groups
Once you've created your Group, find it on the Groups list and click Add Members.
To add staff and members...
Our Share Feature offers a variety of ways to add people to Mentor Groups.
Link: You can either copy a shareable link to your clipboard, download a QR code that directs people to the shareable link, or use the mobile share options to access the shareable link. Choose roles before sharing the link, as this determines the permissions provided by the share link:
Add: You can also add people to your mentor group instantly under the "Add" tab. You can use this option to bulk-add or invite new members by entering a comma-separated list of email addresses.
When looking up existing members, you can search for individual members or by cohorts and select any or all members in that cohort:
Make sure you have the correct role selected and then click Add. Existing users will be added instantly. If someone doesn't have a membership in your account yet, they will be sent an invite and will be prompted to create their personal account.
You can add people in any role or change their role later.
Mentor Groups Pricing
Every plan includes at least one Mentor Group with all the features above. You can upgrade to create more Groups anytime.
Here are the details:
Trial account: 1 group
Starter: 1 group
Essentials: 5 groups
Complete: 20 groups
Enterprise: Unlimited groups
FAQs
Q. How do I edit and organize Groups?
A. Select the additional actions icon (...) to the right of your Group and select Manage group. You can...
Edit the name
Add an optional description
Nest this Group under another Group to clarify organizational relationships
Delete the Group
Expand and collapse Groups for more clarity.
Q. Can I change the order in which my Mentor Groups appear?
A. Mentor groups are ordered by the date they were created, starting with the most recent. There is not currently an option to change the Mentor Group order.
Q. How do I change someone's role after I've added them?
A. To edit the role of a Group Admin or Mentor, hover over their avatar and select the additional actions icon (...) to the right of their name. Select "Configure membership" to pull up a dropdown menu that shows every setting available for them. Confirm, and their role will be changed.
To edit the role of a member, select the additional actions icon (...) to the right of the member's name and select "Configure membership", then follow the instructions above.
Q. How to I remove staff and members?
A. To remove a member, select the additional actions icon (...) to the right of the member's name and select "Remove".
To remove a staff member, hover over their avatar and select the additional actions icon (...) to the right of their name, then select "Remove".
Q. Can I appoint one of multiple mentors in a group to leave a final Review on members' step completions?
By default, Mentors and Group Admins are able to leave a Review (and award Points, if present) on each Member's Step Completions. But if you'd prefer a staff member to only leave Feedback on completions — but not leave a final Review or Point Score — you can now toggle it off. To access this setting, select the additional actions icon (...) to the right of the staff member's name and select "Configure membership." Toggling this to Off disables the ability for the staff member to use the Review screen.
Q. Can I download more information on the Mentor Groups in my account?
Two downloadable CSV reports are available for Mentor Groups and these can be accessed only by account Administrators. To download a report, open your account-wide Community, open the additional actions icon in the upper right corner, and select a report to download.
Q. How does a mentor track progress and review work?
Once assigned to a Group, a Mentor's Home > People > Groups page provides access to any Group they are leading.
Here's an article from the Mentor's point of view, covering just what the Mentor can see and do.
Q. How does the weekly digest email work for Mentors?
A. We've created a weekly email with everything you need to know to keep your Group on track week to week. By default, the digest will be turned on for each Group you're directly managing or mentoring.
You can turn the Mentor Digest off or on for any Group where you're a Mentor or Group Admin by clicking the "dots" icon by your name and then "Configure Membership."
The email digest includes:
Pending review: Every step that needs to be reviewed or graded along with how long it's been waiting. Use this to give timely feedback without letting anything slip through the cracks.
Progress last week: a snapshot of each group member's progress (or lack of progress) for every course path they've started. Use these snapshots to keep tabs on where learners are focused (or not focused), and intervene as necessary.
💡Tip: by hitting "reply all" on any digest email that you receive, you can send a private email to all the other mentors and/or group admins in your group when working with other mentors. Members will not be copied on the emails.