Case studies - AI - special issue of International Journal of Designs for Learning,

 The International Journal of Designs for Learning published a special issue on Gen AI in learning design at the end of 2025.

There are 30 articles, including 6 'short-form design cases.

There are 8 case studies followed by a special section with 16 articles on learning design for Gen AI.

An editorial by the special edition editors, opens the issue. Articles and themes across the issue are summarised

-Gen AI as a facilitation tool for learning workflow

- Gen AI as a site for AI literacy and critical thinking

- Gen AI as a creative and material partner

- Gen AI, ethics and the work of 'holding the line'

- Designing with Gen AI in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Of note for learning design in the VET  context are the articles:

- G. Fares' article Ch(AI)r: Advancing furniture design through AI craftsmanship - using poetic prompts to generate images using Midjourney and DALL-E. The images are then used as starting points for students' engagement with materials to create a chair.

-  Capturing elusive technology: designing a course on Ai for learning and development practitioners by Da Silva - the learning design of an asynchronous online course for learning desigers.

-  J. Yu and H. Rho on 'just seeing can be deceiving: Gen AI - supported design case for critical visual literacy -  uses AI as a 'cognitive partner' to intentionally create misleading versions of students' data visualisation to encourage and learn critiqueing skills.

-  R. M. Quintana, C. Quintana and M. McCurry on 'unpacking design of an online course series - Gen AI as a learning design partner - presents and discusses the opportunities and applications of Gen AI for supporting and enhancing learning design activities

- Implementing AI course assistances: a rapid design case from concept to full rollout at Los Angeles Pacific University by G. Henshaw and M. Wilday. Used AI as a Socratic partner to support greater student engagement, critical thinking and motivation. Involved faculty as co-designers. 

-  Davis. J. Utilization of ChatGPT to create materials of flipped classroom. - Use to revise pre-class resources and found that develop that it as effective in saving resource development time, improvement in student outcomes noted and quiz questions did not have as many mistakes. 

- Brinkman, E. - redesigning an introduction to writing assignment in the age of AI - emphasised the use of AI as a writing collaborator. Worksheets, scaffolds for learning and prompts are shared in the article. 

- Designing for AI literacy: a modular, Gen AI integrated course interdisciplinary graduate students in education by N. King and J. Yan. - describes the development of a graduate seminar to explore what Ai is and how to use it. 

Many of the articles provide good examples for educators as to how to incorporate AI into courses/programmes. Projects drew on disciplinary and constructivist pedagogies, with AI used to support rather than replace learning. Overall, a good resource to show how AI integration needs to be founded on Ai literacies, good understanding of pedagogy and the learning contexts, and the reflective practice required to utilise technology to enhance learning.