Co-design practices with artificial intelligence: an analysis of the developmental trajectories of pedagogical reasoning

This study investigates how 191 pre-service teachers develop their pedagogical reasoning while interacting with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a co-design task. Using a mixed-methods design, a quantitative analysis (Model-Based Clustering) identified three dis-tinct profiles: Diligent pragmatists (52.4%), Confident collaborators (20.4%), and Criti-cal-reflective designers (27.2%). A qualitative textual analysis (TF-IDF) of the instructional designs confirmed that these profiles are defined not by technical skills, but by an emerging pedagogical stance toward technology, revealed by specific lexical patterns. The findings highlight the need for teacher education to shift from teaching how to “use” AI to educating on how to “think with” AI, fostering critical and reflective digital competence