The bachelor’s thesis of Ondřej Foltýn, a student at the Faculty of Information Technology at Czech Technical University in Prague (FIT CTU), focuses on the design and implementation of an intelligent assistant (chatbot) for teaching programming in the Scratch environment, which is widely used in upper primary schools. This chatbot, called Copilot, leverages a large language model (LLM) to help children better understand programming concepts during lessons. It is integrated directly into the Scratch programming environment and functions as an interactive guide – communicating with students via chat, providing feedback, offering advice on code corrections, and suggesting next steps for solving tasks. Ondřej received the Dean’s Award for his work in the summer semester of 2024/2025.
“The motivation for this project was the growing need for effective support in teaching computer science in primary schools, where qualified teachers are often lacking and one educator must lead groups with varying levels of knowledge and needs. In such a context, an AI-based chatbot can provide children with individualized support that would otherwise be difficult to ensure,” explains Ondřej Foltýn.
While existing commercial tools, such as GitHub Copilot, assist experienced programmers by automatically generating code, Ondřej’s Copilot differs significantly due to its educational focus – it does not program for the children but explains programming principles, encourages independent thinking, and helps them understand their own mistakes, thereby developing their logical and creative skills.
The chatbot also uses the full context of the children’s work when generating responses – it analyzes the current Scratch code, draws on language documentation, and follows didactic principles that support clear and meaningful conversation. It can also take into account the teacher’s instructions, such as the goal of the task or a sample solution, producing responses that are not only technically correct but also pedagogically valuable.
The project also included two phases of testing. Beta testing took place in a real programming club environment, where ten children aged 10 to 13 tried out Copilot. The results confirmed that the system can effectively support students in working on projects, although its responses needed to be further adapted to the children’s age and knowledge.
“Testing showed that Copilot has great potential. The plan is to continue developing the system, improving the quality of responses, expanding work with visual elements, and adding tools for teachers so they can, for example, monitor their students’ progress in real time and better tailor instruction to their needs,” says Ondřej.
