Reconfiguring school leadership practices in AI-mediated professional learning: A multiple case study of digital portfolios

This article examines how school leadership teams learned to work with generative AI (GenAI) while addressing authentic organisational problems. It draws on a qualitative multiple-case study of three school leadership teams, examined through digital portfolios developed in a structured professional learning laboratory. The portfolios are analysed as selective documentary records compiled during the laboratory. Through qualitative content analysis, the study traces temporal progression, sociomaterial arrangements and cross-case patterns. The findings show a recurring process in which teams began from existing organisational problems, translated them into bounded tasks, tested prompts and artefacts, dealt with technical breakdowns and, in some cases, stabilised selected outputs within organisational routines. From this analysis, the article develops an emergent process model of AI-mediated professional learning in school leadership. Empirically, the study documents how leadership teams worked with GenAI while addressing organisational problems. Conceptually, it suggests that GenAI integration is less a discrete act of adoption than a situated process through which problems, tools, documents and routines are gradually brought into relation. Methodologically, it illustrates the value of digital portfolios for tracing documented changes in professional learning and organisational work over time. The article concludes with implications for leadership development and future research on GenAI in schools.