The research question driving this study is: "How does the Pico Site prepare pre-service teachers in their agency to become curriculum makers through the 'Units of Learning' intervention?" The Pico site (Doyle, O’Grady & Conroy Johnson, 2025) operates at the level of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and positions the Pre-Service Teacher (PST) and Teacher Educator (TE) as curriculum makers. The study maps Phases 1, 2 & 3 of a three-year design-based research study (Nieveen, van den Akker & Voogt, 2023) offering an intervention called "Units of Learning," (UoL) specifically designed for the purpose of fostering curriculum-making agency (Priestley et al., 2015) and capabilities among PSTs during their ITE programmes in Ireland. Grounded in the concept of emergence (Osberg & Biesta, 2007), the UoL reframes education not as progress toward a fixed telos or the mere accumulation of knowledge, but as an "outward movement" and "expansiveness" (Davis & Sumara, 2008, p. 57). Central to this intervention is curriculum thinking, which Deng (2018) argues supersedes pedagogical reasoning by prioritising the "what" and "why" of teaching over the "how." This approach involves identifying the "elementary" elements of a curriculum to unlock their potential for Bildung—the cultivation of human powers and capacities. Ultimately, this framework suggests that learning is "progressive" because it is "constantly expanding the space of the possible" (Davis & Sumara, 2008, p. 57). Forming a working team of teacher educators, we set out to do preliminary research on how to address this complex challenge through design-based research. Phase 1: Self-Study (August 2021- June 2022) Phase 2: Design a Unit of Learning (August 2022 – June 2024) Phase 3: Evaluation Unit of Learning (September 2025 – April 2026) The significance of this paper lies in four key areas of development within ITE: 1. The Teacher Educator as Pedagogue of Curriculum Design 2. Curriculum as Dynamic Ecosystem 3. Cultivating Agency through Cognitive Dissonance 4. Professional Preparation & Placement as a Catalyst for Curriculum Design This research argues that fostering curriculum-making capacity (Priestley et al. 2021) is a deliberate, transformative process rather than a byproduct of ‘training’. By reframing the curriculum as a dynamic, non-linear ecosystem, the PST at the Pico site can move beyond technical preparation. This approach empowers teacher educators to act as architects of the process to enable PST professional identity to emerge as agential practitioners. These PSTs are equipped to navigate and shape the complex, emergent dynamics of modern education.

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