Orientations Offered By Mentor Coaches

Apprentice Mentors are required to attend one orientation session in order to be placed into the Second Life Mentors group. Mentor Coaches are volunteers in the Mentor group who offer these sessions to help new mentors become familiar with the available resources and guidelines.

• The Mentor Coach led orientations adhere to a set of guidelines and session outline points from the VTeam to ensure all attendees receive the necessary information and materials. These sessions are to be considered the official way to gain entrance to the Second Life Mentor group.

Guidelines

• Mentor Coaches should contact a VTeam Linden one week in advance to schedule a day and time for their orientation session. All orientations should take place on SL Volunteer HI. Please also have the name of your Buddy speaker.

• Sessions should be approximately one hour long with a maximum of 30 attendees. Those with reserved seats should be given priority over drop ins.

• Mentor Coaches should find a replacement Coach for their session if they are unable to attend, as well as notifying a VTeam Linden of the changes as soon as possible.

Please remember many attendees have arranged their daily schedules to be present. Coaches should make every effort to not miss a scheduled orientation or be late.

• Mentor Coaches may teach alone or in pairs, along with having a Mentor Buddy guest speaker. Please give Mentor Buddies a reasonable amount of notice when asking them to speak at your session.

• Sessions can be done in English or another language, or both at once with one Mentor Coach translating.

• Sessions should take place in text only unless approval is given by the VTeam. Please discourage voice chat during a session.

• Use of a personal class template is encouraged for all Coaches. Copy and paste during your session is acceptable as well as ad lib.

• Use of the provided orientation class handouts should be encouraged. An additional kiosk to offer your session materials is acceptable. Please remember all materials given out need to be PG and nothing involving promotion or advertising.

• Please do take questions regarding orientation at some point in your session. It is acceptable to ask for questions to be held until you ask for them. Stick to session questions and topics only. Questions you need assistance answering can be directed to a VTeam Linden by you or the person with the question.

• Please take attendance at the end of your session. This attendance list with your name, session date and time should be given to the VTeam Linden who scheduled your session right away. Please let the attendees know they will be moved to Second Life Mentors group within approximately 48 hours.

• End of session surveys can be very useful feedback for you. We encourage Coaches to use a free SurveyMonkey acct and offer an exit survey to their attendees. A sample of survey questions is here (to be added)

Session Outline Points

Coaches please include the follow points in your session. A sample session can be seen here