New Perspectives in Science Education

Despite the growing popularity of online learning tools, many fail to provide personalized guidance, often leading to a one-size-fits-all approach. This paper presents the development and evaluation of AI-Tutor, an open-source, web-based AI chatbot designed to support students in learning computer science concepts. Using generative AI, the proposed tool provides interactive, real-time tutoring through prompt-engineered responses. The aim is to help students when learning new programming topics and encourages critical thinking during exercises by offering guidance without providing direct answers. The paper discusses two aspects: the design of AI-Tutor and an initial evaluation of its potential to supplement traditional teaching methods. The tool is open-source, which makes it accessible for further academic research and development.