What do we mean when we talk about a scaffold for learning?

A scaffold for learning, defined as a tool or agent that assists a student in performing a task independently before being removed, is fundamentally incompatible with subscription-based AI services like Copilot 365, which are designed for permanent use and outsourcing of capabilities. Researchers Thomas Corbin and Jack Walton argue that AI summarisers and similar tools are not built to be dispensed with, raising questions about whether and how such technologies can function as true educational scaffolds. The challenge for educators is to develop teaching practices that allow students to transition away from AI assistance for specific tasks, a process that may be easier when the tool is centrally provided rather than individually subscribed.

What do we mean when we talk about a scaffold for learning? I really like this definition offered Thomas Corbin & Jack Walton in this paper https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2025.2486185 . From pg 1663: a tool, practice, or other agent who assists the primary agent in performing a task themselves for example, an adult caregiver who helps a child to read a sentence or complete an equation by providing prompts and positive feedback without doing the work for them . Corbin et al., 2025. See also, Lodge et al., 2023; Wass et al., 2011 The problem with AI summarisers the topic of the paper , as well AI tools more broadly, is that they are not designed to be scaffolds. As the authors describe it later in the same page a scaffold is designed to be dispensed with: A scaffold, in the more common sense of the word, is a structure workers use to con- struct a building. Importantly, once the building is complete, it is then removed at the end of the process. It helps support construction, but once construction ends so does its role. The metaphor works in an educational context because the scaffold is removed once a student grasps the requisite information or skill. A child’s reading is scaffolded if their reading of a sentence is aided by an adult, but the intended goal of that assistance is that it will be removed as the child’s grasp of language improves. An adult caregiver, or to extend the metaphor, a higher education teacher, is motivated to remove their scaffolded assistance as the student’s capabilities improve. A subscription based service by definition isn’t designed to be dispensed with. While enterprise services short circuit their logic, Copilot 365 is explicitly intended to enable existing capabilities to be outsourced . This is the design philosophy upon which the promise of productivity gains is inevitably founded. Can it be used as a scaffold? What are the teaching and learning practices we need to surround it to make it possible to operate as a scaffold? To the extent there’s an answer to this question, it presumably has to be task-sensitive. So the student might dispense with Copilot for a task while retaining the use of Copilot more broadly. The teacher then plays a role, I imagine, in supporting this transition which is easier when the tool is centrally provided so it’s part of the shared learning environment rather than the student’s individual subscription.