Tutoring services have experienced exponential increases in enrollment in Canada, with Ontario alone witnessing a 60% increase in enrollment from 1996 to 2000 (see Aurini & Davies, 2004). While Canadian research has documented organizational changes (Aurini & Davies, 2004; Aurini, 2006) and parents’ motives to enroll in tutoring services (Davies, 2004; Gale, 2016), the lived experiences of students with tutoring services are notably absent from the literature to date. In response, the current study investigates the experiences of high school students receiving math tutoring services (n =3) and their parents (n =2). The extent to which their participation in tutoring demonstrates “transboundary learning” (Kim & Jung, 2019b) is also examined in response to claims that tutoring services represent mainly peripheral learning environments as opposed to a core part of students’ learning (Aurini & Davies, 2013). Guided by a poststructuralism theoretical framework, the study employs qualitative methods to respond to three questions: (1) What are the lived experiences of high school students receiving math tutoring from a private tutoring service in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada)? (2) What are parents’ motives for seeking private tutoring services? and (3) How do participants perceive the learning taking place in different environments (e.g., tutoring vs. school)? Data from semi-structured interviews with high school students and their parents are analyzed using thematic analysis and interpreted using a Transboundary Learning framework (Kim & Jung, 2019b). Findings reveal key characteristics of transboundary learning in participants’ math tutoring contexts, suggesting a shift in the relationship between tutoring and schooling from peripheral to transboundary learning, whereby, tutoring is not regarded as peripheral as it has been in the literature to date. These findings are discussed in light of the noteworthy influence of tutoring over students' learning and schooling, and the potential for more inequalities in education.

Both legislative mandates such as those of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and developments in the provision of reading instruction such as Response to Intervention (RTI), increase the demand for high quality tutoring services. However, the U.S. Department of Education and state officials report that access to intensive supplemental tutoring may be limited in rural and urban areas due to limited availability of qualified providers. Online tutoring may be one way to provide supplemental reading instruction to students identified as at-risk of reading failure. Researchers have focused on distance education since the 1920s. The authors of recent meta-analyses report near zero effect sizes between distance education and traditional face-to-face instruction for adults, paraprofessionals, postsecondary, and K-12 students. Relatively little information is available about the effects of distance education on K-12 students at-risk of reading failure. To update and narrow the search of previous reviews, we systematically reviewed literature on distance education for at-risk K-12 students. We found 39 articles that met our search criterion. None of the 39 articles provided empirical evidence on the effects of distance education for at-risk K-12 students. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of online reading instruction for at-risk fourth-grade students in Utah and Philadelphia. A multiple baseline design was used to assess the extent to which at-risk fourth-grade students increase their oral reading rate given systematic supplemental online reading instruction. Tutoring consisted of four sessions per week with 50-minute lessons of direct instruction delivered over a web-based synchronous two-way audiovisual system. Analysis of the multiple baseline across participants revealed gains in oral reading fluency for all participants when placed into the synchronous online tutoring program. Additionally, all participants made standard score gains on basic reading skills as assessed by the Woodcock Johnson Test of Achievement and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) benchmark assessments. Participating students and tutors reported an awareness of increased reading skills and value of synchronous online instruction. Finally, teachers and parents generally reported that students demonstrated increased reading skills after receiving instruction.

For many years, Latin America has faced many socioeconomic problems. The lack of education and the limitation of access to information have been highly harmful to people with limited economic resources. As a consequence of these two inequalities, the crime ratio in the region has surpassed the global average ratio, and the development growth rate is low compared to other developing economies. Many educators around the world have concluded that the root of the problem is the bad structured educational systems in many of these countries, where not only the lack of well trained teachers, but also the limitation of opportunities is evident. As a result, Latin American people face many problems to compete and to excel in different fields in this globalized society. TutorEs is an online platform which desires to lessen the gap between the different socioeconomic status in terms of education quality. By providing open access to high quality educational material and taking advantage of information technology and the Internet; the company desires to empower people with the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed and to create a positive impact to the Latin American society as a whole. Besides providing teaching sessions, TutorES will also be able to create job opportunities through the offering of informal job positions, where people with the right skills can provide their service as tutors and receive a payment. The special feature of TutorES platform is the free online tutoring sessions provided by people who want to donate time and efforts to learners who cannot afford a learning session at an academic institution which requires a monthly payment for the service. TutorES believes that education is a powerful tool that will promote a positive change in the Latin American region.

Ce travail de thèse a pour projet d’interroger les pratiques de tuteurs en ligne par l'analyse d'interactions tutorales situées étudiants/tuteur produites par le biais d’outils numériques de communication lors de formations institutionnelles à distance et en ligne. L’objectif est de dégager les indices susceptibles d'apporter des éléments de référence pour définir l’intervention tutorale transversale. Il s'agit de comprendre les processus de construction concernant les spécificités des missions du tuteur et les attentes de leur engagement dans l'enseignement et l'apprentissage vers la proposition d’une définition d’un tutorat transversal et de sa mise en place dans les formations à distance pour l’université. Le champ théorique est celui de l'ethnographie dans ses présupposés théoriques (démarche empirique) et par ses pratiques méthodologiques. Nous développons une enquête afin d'observer les interactions au travers des interventions tutorales qui s’attachent à accompagner les étudiants non sur un enseignement précis mais dans un positionnement transversal où se produisent les échanges entre des étudiants de master et une personne tutrice pendant deux années universitaires. La multimodalité des interactions tutorales permettra la constitution de collections de données émises par l'intermédiaire de communication numérique (outils synchrones et asynchrones). Ces données se composent de traces écrites laissées par les étudiants sur les forums de discussion, dans la correspondance par courrier électronique et dans des conversations synchrones. Les actions conversationnelles développées dans ce contexte permettront alors d’interpréter les phénomènes mis à jour lors de l’enquête. Cette recherche offre ainsi l’opportunité de proposer une comparaison entre la fonction académique de tuteur en ligne et la réalité de sa position dans les formations à distance et de soumettre des pistes pour une meilleure intégration du tutorat en ligne dans les formations. L’objectif final étant de proposer un prototype des pratiques tutorales dans la perspective d’une mise en place d'un tutorat en ligne dans les formations numériques universitaires. / The goal of this thesis is to assess the online tutoring through an analysis of tutoring interactions between students and tutors using digital communication tools during distance and online institutional education. The objective is to identify indexes that can be referential in determining cross-cutting tutorial activity. It is an attempt to understand the process of determining the specificities of the missions of tutors and the expectations of their participation in teaching and learning with the view to establish an cross-cutting tutoring activity and its implementation in distance education for the university. The theoretical framework is that of ethnography in its theory (empirical approach) and its methodological approaches. We are preparing a survey in order to observe tutoring-based interactions which focus on guiding students not in a specific discipline, but rather in a cross-section of disciplines, characterised by discussions between Master’s Degree students and a tutor for two years. The multi-modality of tutoring will lead to the collection of data resulting from digital communication tools (both synchronous and non-synchronous). The data will thus be composed of both written traces left by students in discussion forums, email and in synchronous conversations. Conversations carried out within this context will thus enable the analysis of the phenomena obtained during the survey. This study thus serves as an opportunity to compare the academic duty of online tutors and the reality of their place in distance education and to provide the way forward for a better integration of online tutoring into education. The overall goal is to come up with a prototype of tutoring activities with the view to create an online tutoring in digital education.

Most Agile Software Development methodologies are aimed towards large companies and large-scale projects. The purpose of this report was to identify, and potentially modify, Agile Development methodologies and strategies suitable for small-scale projects. Initially a comprehensive study was conducted on a few selected agile methodologies in order to find the most suitable one to be used for a loosely defined small-scale project. The result of the study led to the methodology Kanban being used experimentally on that project. The report goes through how Kanban was utilized and modified to better suit the project as well as bring forward interesting details regarding the outcome of the actual project. The produced methodology, with Kanban at its core, can especially be of use for small IT companies looking for an agile methodology fitting their project(s). It could also be used to further develop alternative variants of the agile methodology Kanban with focus on small-scale projects. / De flesta agila utvecklingsmetodiker riktar sig mot storskaliga projekt och företag. Syftet med denna rapport var att identifiera lämpliga agila utvecklingsmetodiker och strategier för småskaliga projekt. Inledningsvis genomfördes en omfattande studie av ett fåtal agila metodiker med målet att hitta den mest lämpliga för ett löst definierat småskaligt projekt. Resultat av studien ledde till att metodiken Kanban experimenterades med och användes för projektet. Rapporten går igenom hur Kanban nyttjades och modifierades för att bättre passa projektet i fråga. Den framtagna metodiken, med Kanban som grund, kan vara speciellt användbar för mindre IT-företag som letar efter en agil metodik som passar deras projekt. Den skulle även kunna användas för att vidareutveckla alternativa agila Kanban-metodiker för småskaliga projekt.