Participatory design for AI in teacher education: From top-down directives to teacher empowerment

Empowering teacher educators to lead technology integration is essential for creating context-sensitive educational futures.This study examines how participatory design workshops can support educators in collaboratively developing sustainable capacity for integrating AI into teacher education.Drawing on a series of three participatory design workshops, the analysis focuses on the collaborative learning processes involved and the professional outcomes they produce.Structured around exploration, co-creation, and reflection, these workshops enabled educators to critically engage with the pedagogical, ethical, and institutional dimensions of AI, fostering both ownership and transformative agency.The findings demonstrate how participatory design can function not only as a design methodology but also as a framework for professional learning.A key contribution of this paper is the demonstration that participatory design supports sustainable AI integration by building educators' capacity for change through the design process.