AI-supported Scaffolding of Student-Led Impact Projects in Education

Artificial intelligence is often praised for its ability to personalise learning, adapting to each student’s speed, style and struggles. While valuable, an exclusive focus on personalisation risks isolating learners and reducing education to automated knowledge delivery. This presentation shows how AI can instead support student-led learning that fosters collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, negotiation and impact orientation.

The CO-STAR framework provides the structure. Originally developed in innovation management, it guides learners through six lenses: Community (who benefits), Opportunity (what need matters), Solution (which idea addresses it), Team (who makes it happen), Advan-tage (why it is distinctive) and Results (how success is measured). AI tools can scaffold each step by offering background research, alternative perspectives and feedback, always as prompts for discussion, never as final answers. The presentation illustrates this through a sustainability project in which secondary students explored the topic of responsible consumption.