Rate My Professor Peter Twining

Peter Twining is Honorary Professor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia, part of the College of Human and Social Futures. He earned his PhD from the Open University UK. Twining joined Newcastle in 2019 from The Open University, where he was Professor of Education (Futures) (2013-2019), Senior Lecturer (2003-2013), Head of Department of Education, and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology. His earlier career included roles as a primary school teacher and initial teacher educator. He served as Co-Editor in Chief of Computers & Education (2015-2017) and led a £9.65 million professional development programme on effective teaching with digital technology, as well as the SCHOME project on future education systems. Motivated by his own negative school experience despite a privileged male/white/middle-class background, Twining is passionate about redesigning education for individual fulfillment and universal wellbeing.

Twining's research specializes in innovation in schooling and educational technology. His work explores reconceptualising schooling amid global challenges like automation and climate change, children’s digital practices inside and outside school, and Point of Learning (PoL) as an innovative assessment tool. Fields of research include curriculum and pedagogy theory and development (40%), teacher education and professional development (30%), and education policy (30%). Key publications include From EdTech to PedTech: Changing the Way We Think about Digital Technology (2023, with F. Aubrey-Smith), Awarding digital badges: research from a first-year university course (2024, with J. Goulding and H. Sharp), Developing a quality curriculum in a technological era (2021, with D. Butler, P. Fisser et al.), Education Systems in the Digital Age: The Need for Alignment (2018, with D. Butler, M. Leahy et al.), and NP3: New Purposes, New Practices, New Pedagogy Meta-analysis Report (2017). He has received the Open University Merit Award (2017), Open University Teaching Award (2005), and European Academic Software Awards Prize (1998). Twining has delivered keynote speeches such as Schooling in the automation age: What is quality education? (2020, ICOTAL) and contributed to consultations for the 2023 GEM Report on technology and education.