Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning is a podcast from the Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning. Our mission is to encourage instructors, students, and leaders in higher education to reflect on what they believe about teaching and learning.
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Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning
UDL at Scale: Designing Learning at the Institutional Level with Thomas Tobin
Thomas Tobin, one of the foremost voices on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), joins us to preview his forthcoming book, UDL at Scale: Whole-Campus Universal Design for Learning. Where his earlier work made UDL manageable for individual instructors, Tobin's new publication asks what happens when an entire campus — including administrators — advocates for and values universal design. Tobin first joined the Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning podcast to discuss inclusive teaching in 2022 (listen to "Student Perceptions of Instructor Authority and Inclusive Teaching (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1xAIyJLvDd8J12RTRsC9EO)").
In this episode, we tackle the dead idea that learners make impartial, rational decisions about how they learn best. Tobin complicates this notion by sharing a contemporary example: students' increased reliance on AI to bypass the fundamental building blocks of learning. He argues that students will thrive as co-designers of learning only when UDL supports underlie those classroom experiences. UDL is only effective when it is possible, permitted, supported, rewarded, and expected across an educational institution at the faculty, student, and administrative levels.
Learn more about our guest’s new publication: Tobin, Thomas J. UDL at Scale: Whole-Campus Universal Design for Learning (https://www.oupress.com/9780806197067/udl-at-scale/) (Oklahoma University Press, 2026)
Other publications mentioned in this discussion:
Tobin, Thomas J. Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education (https://wvupress.com/9781946684608/reach-everyone-teach-everyone/) (West Virginia University Press, 2018)
Weimer, Maryellen. Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice (https://www.wiley.com/en-us/shop/general-introductory-education/learner-centered-teaching-five-key-changes-to-practice-2nd-edition-p-9781118119280) (Wiley, 2013)
17 Sept 2026
What Five Years of Listening to Students Taught Us About Learning. A Conversation with Chris Gallagher, Kristi Girdharry, and Kevin Smith
For five years, Chris Gallagher, Kristi Girdharry, and Kevin Smith sat down each semester with the same set of twenty Northeastern University students. What began as an analysis of these students’ writing skills evolved into a book on how students often understand the learning process more clearly than faculty recognize.
Gallagher, Girdharry, and Smith's new book, Getting Learning Right: The Promise of Higher Education, takes aim at some of the myths that circulate in public discourse about college - that students enroll simply for the credential or that everything can be learned online, for example. In this episode, we focus instead on what the students themselves had to say about their own undergraduate experience. These anecdotes and the insights they provide might just be the inspiration we need to reshape the future of higher education.
Learn more about our guests’ new publication, Getting Learning Right: The Promise of Higher Education (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262054201/getting-learning-right/) (MIT Press).
Other articles mentioned in this conversation: “Not Just Another AI Statement: Modeling Process and Collaboration in Higher Education (https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/just-visiting/2025/09/24/ai-policies-require-collaboration-heres-how-do-it)” (Inside Higher Ed)
26 Mar 2026
Bonus Episode: Reimagining Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI. A Conversation with Columbia University Students.
In this special bonus episode, we step away from our typical one-on-one interview format to share excerpts from a student panel that our host Amanda Irvin moderated at the recent "Reimagining Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI" Forum. This event was a joint effort coordinated by the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning, the Data Science Institute, Columbia Alliance, the School of Engineering, and Teachers College.Four Columbia students, representing a range of disciplines, backgrounds, and relationships with AI, reflect candidly on what it's actually like to be a learner in this moment. They share how AI functions in their academic lives, what they wish faculty understood about their use of it, and what they need from instructors as the landscape continues to shift. The conversation is less a debate about AI and more an exploration about the relational fabric of learning. A full transcript with speaker attributions and bios, as well as a link to the video recording, are available in the show notes.
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5 ratings
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