Developing Online student tutoring through a standardized process : Lean thinking for online student tutors

Online learning is part of the modern transformation of higher education, the need to provide guidance and support to university students is recognized by higher educational institutions and tutoring is one solution to respond to the students’ needs. The need of peer-to-peer tutoring for students in distance learning is just as important as for those studying on-site. The objective of this research was to develop online student tutoring by creating a continuously improving standardized process for IB online student tutors tutoring their peers while using lean thinking as the theoretical framework. The standardized process is designed to support the current development of the online student tutoring. The methodology used for this project is a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods supported by participant observation. Participant observation is used because of the authors’ direct experience in the tutoring practices of Turku UAS’s IB Online degree programme. The results showcase three main issues: the absence of training that online student tutors get access to, absence of a structured process and confusing communication methods