Investigating the potential of GenAI as a scaffolding tool in Mathematics Education

In the beginning of the 2020s, a number of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) systems emerged and started to be used by the students for their ability to process natural language input and give immediate feedback. Although schools are mainly struggling to reduce the possibilities of cheating, researchers in education are interested to understand if and how generative AI technologies might open up new possibilities and approaches to improving student learning. In this regard, we seek to explore the potential of GenAI to support students mathematical learning. This work presents an a priori analysis in which researchers simulated the use of a GenAI system, by undergraduate students, to explore if and to what extent GenAI can be used as a scaffolding tool for learning the concept of function continuity. Results reveal the high potential of the tool but underline the need to further investigate the nature of the changes that GenAI brings to mathematics teaching and learning.