beliefs – Halfbaked.Education

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.

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.

Comparing pedagogical stances

PeterTJuly 30, 2025June 7, 2026Leave a comment

There are four dominant pedagogical stances — ways of understanding how people learn. Each of these is a full theory of learning, built on distinct and interconnected assumptions about knowledge, learners, learning, teaching, and the purpose of education. The four theories are:

Traditional (a mix of behaviourism and cognitive theories)
Individual constructivist (think Piaget)
Social constructivist (think Vygotsky)
Sociocultural (think Lave and Wenger)

The table below, adapted from Aubrey-Smith & Twining (2024, pp. 131–132), outlines the key assumptions made by each theory.

Alignment matters

PeterTJuly 26, 2025June 7, 2026Leave a comment

This is the first of three brief videos about the importance of alignment in schools. It addresses the questions 'Why does alignment matter?' and 'What needs to be aligned?' as well as defining some key terms.