Halfbaked.Education – The Belief2Practice Blog

Teachers have more power than they think

PeterTJuly 3, 2026Leave a comment

Originally posted 18th April 2019

Schools and teachers are constrained by accountability and assessment regimes. However, in my experience schools and teachers have a great deal of agency - they can and do respond very differently to similar external pressures. For example, in one school I visited the children were doing addition problems on a drill and skill maths app. Once they completed the set of questions the app indicated which were correct/incorrect. The children then proceeded to copy the sums into their exercise books for the teacher to mark. When I asked the teacher why they did this she explained that they needed a paper trail for Ofsted.

In contrast, in another school that I visited the head teacher strongly resisted changing practice for the benefit of the inspectors:the head teacher strongly resisted changing practice for the benefit of the inspectors:

Helping students to ask questions

PeterTJuly 3, 2026July 3, 2026Leave a comment

Originally published on 26th October 2018

This post attempts to summarise a Twitter thread about how to encourage student questions which went viral in August 2018. @MrsSasser ’s initial post explained how apparently small changes in the way she asked students if they had any questions had a massive impact on the number of questions that they asked. Similarly, most of the other suggestions appeared to be based on practical experience of using them and finding that they had a positive impact.

What NP3 Taught Us About Children, Digital Technology, and Schools 1

PeterTJune 15, 2026June 15, 20261 Comment

Between 2014 and 2017, a team of researchers from the Open University, Lancaster, and Manchester Metropolitan universities set out to explore the ways children use digital technology outside school and the extent to which that connects with what happens inside school.

The project was called NP3 — New Purposes, New Practices, New Pedagogy. It was funded by the Society for Educational Studies and ran over two years across 13 primary schools in England and Scotland. More than 100 children and 60 teachers took part. Forty-three 'log children' used digital cameras to capture their home digital technology use and were interviewed individually. More than 20 of their carers were also interviewed. Thirty-one teachers were each observed teaching at least one lesson and interviewed at least twice. It was a substantial piece of work.

What it found was, in retrospect, predictable, but the evidence matters. Schools and children were, in effect, living in parallel digital worlds.

The Innovative Pedagogy Framework

PeterTJune 15, 2026June 15, 2026Leave a comment

Originally posted 5th December 2018

One of the challenges facing the NP3 team was how to describe and differentiate between the pedagogical practices in the classrooms that we were researching. In essence, what were the key features of practice that needed to be considered in order to differentiate between the teaching in each setting? The obvious answer seemed to be to use core theories of learning and development as the basis for a framework to help us compare pedagogy across contexts. Patricia Murphy therefore devised the Innovative Pedagogy Framework, starting with the following theoretical positions:

Traditional (Behaviourist/Information Processing)
Constructivist
- Cognitive/Piagetian
- Radical
- Social
Innovative (Sociocultural)

The Digital Technology Impact Framework (DTIF)

PeterTJune 15, 2026June 15, 2026Leave a comment

Originally posted 30th November 2018

How do you describe how digital technology is being used in education in a way that is concise yet allows useful comparison across contexts? The Digital Technology Impact Framework highlights key elements of practice involving digital technology across three dimensions.

Which Pedagogical Stance Should You Adopt If You Are Working in a Traditional Education System? 1

PeterTJune 7, 2026June 7, 20261 Comment

The PedTech framework, as set out in From EdTech to PedTech (Aubrey-Smith and Twining, 2024), starts with values and beliefs. Everything else - purpose, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and the role of digital technology - flows from there. One implication of this, which I have explored in earlier posts, is that alignment matters. Your pedagogical stance needs to be consistent with the system you are operating in, otherwise the coherence that makes a PedTech approach powerful breaks down.

However, this raises an uncomfortable question.

Is teaching a profession?

PeterTJune 7, 2026June 7, 2026Leave a comment

[This post was originally published in 2014]

We assume that digital technology can improve education and that ‘the challenge’ is how to bring innovative technology and educational professionals together. However, the research evidence shows that despite massive investment digital technology has not resulted in significant improvements in learning experiences or attainment in education (e.g. Luckin et al., 2012) [http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/decoding-learning].

PedTech misconceptions: PedTech is NOT a Thing

PeterTMay 29, 2026June 7, 2026Leave a comment

The title is, on the face of it, an odd claim. PedTech clearly is a thing — there is a book about it, a series of posts on this blog unpacking its implications, and a growing body of practice around it. So what does it mean to say PedTech is not a thing?

PedTech is not a thing in the way that EdTech is a thing. It is not a tool. You cannot pick it up, deploy it, or choose between versions of it.

Is teaching atheoretical?

PeterTApril 18, 2026June 7, 2026Leave a comment

A common claim, often heard from teachers themselves, is that teaching is atheoretical. The argument runs that what teachers do in classrooms is craft, judgement, and experience, not theory. Theory is for academics. Practice is what counts.

There may be an element of truth in this, however the claim, taken at face value, is wrong, and the way it is wrong matters.