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The RIOS (for a Racially-just Inclusive Open STEM Education) Institute presents an interview podcast where Dr. Bryan Dewsbury of the Science Education And Society (SEAS) lab converses with individuals who do social justice work in science education and education in general. We hope people enjoy the conversation itself, and consider new ways in which education can be transformative whatever your situation may be.
Welcome to Knowledge Unbound. Wonderful guest we have. I was able to interview doctor Thomas Tobin at HUD, which stands for the Professional Organization of Developers. We had our annual conference in San Diego, California last year. So I was able to snag Tom for a little bit.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah, Tom Tom's an interesting guy. You know, as you will find out when you listen to our conversation. But he really brought, at least for me, a different perspective of how to think about disability, of its origins and, you know, maybe in thinking about the different the you come up with different solutions to when it's in your presence. I hope that makes sense. Well, we had a great time.
Bryan Dewsbury:Tom just released a book last week, which we'll talk about during our interview. It's great. I had a chance to read an advanced copy of it. So I hope you get a chance to see it as well. Hope you enjoy the conversation, and I'll see you at the end.
Bryan Dewsbury:I feel like I owe a bunch of people drinks for saying yes to come to my podcast, but that's alright. And I guess the other way to look at it is I feel very blessed to have people like yourself, Tom, who've been doing a lot of work around the country and the world on different things. So today we have Doctor. Tobin. The the best way I can describe him is anytime an institution of higher education in the world, not just United States, in the world, is asking themselves questions about UDL.
Bryan Dewsbury:Tom is one of the first names that appear. Right? He's written several books, several articles, book chapters, you know, supported programming, etcetera, etcetera. Not gonna read off his CV, but first of all, welcome to Knowledge Unbound.
Thomas Tobin:Thank you very much, Brian. I'm glad to be here with you and your listeners. And Brian said he was going to describe me. I'll do that for you.
Bryan Dewsbury:No. No. I said you will describe. I don't like to describe my guests. My my my listeners know that.
Bryan Dewsbury:I want you to describe yourself.
Thomas Tobin:So Well, hello hello listeners. My name is Tom Tobin. I'm a white man with gray hair, glasses, and a giant black mustache. Brian's laughing because he was thinking I was gonna tell you where I work and all that kind of stuff. But
Bryan Dewsbury:You're not gonna put a picture in your website. Right? If you know that
Thomas Tobin:how Yeah. And and if listeners are in their car and aren't looking at website or whatnot, I like to be accessible first.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. Makes sense.
Thomas Tobin:That that physical description is important to me.
Bryan Dewsbury:Makes sense.
Thomas Tobin:Makes sense. And I currently work at the University of Wisconsin Madison, but truth be told listeners between just you and me Mhmm. That's not my primary work. The primary work that I do is I work all over the place around the world with colleges and universities, helping them understand how when we design all of our learning engagements
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So that we lower access barriers for students, for instructors, for the staff, and not just in the classroom too, but all over the place in our service touch points. It actually makes good financial sense.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So Okay. That's what I do, you know, when I'm not at work.
Bryan Dewsbury:Let let's let's get right into that. Do you lead with that? Do you lead with it it makes good financial sense?
Thomas Tobin:I never used to. When I Okay. When I started working in universal design for learning, I think I was one of the few people in higher education who got into the concept of universal design for learning or UDL. Mhmm. At the time, it was the late nineteen nineties, early two thousands, and UDL was very much an elementary and secondary school thing.
Thomas Tobin:Right. People weren't doing it in high education.
Bryan Dewsbury:My wife taught k 12 in in high school, so that's the way I first heard it. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Right. And I ended up coming to it because I was helping a faculty member at a two year college who had gone blind in his forties due to undiagnosed diabetes, helping him teach online courses. And I started to look around, what are some of the frameworks or ways that we can do educational development, and there was kind of nothing. There was the literature wasn't there yet. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:But you're absolutely right that UDL, when we're thinking about it sort of in the early days, not
Bryan Dewsbury:a
Thomas Tobin:lot of folks knew what it was
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And not a lot of folks saw value there. And so when I started talking about UDL, I would always come in, you know, if a college or university wanted a a lecture or a talk or a workshop.
Bryan Dewsbury:Let me meet some people one second. You get you said something. I just wanna clarify. Okay. You said not a lot of people knew what it was, but then you also said not a lot of people saw value there.
Bryan Dewsbury:They did not see value even when it was explained, or they did not see value because they didn't know what it was.
Thomas Tobin:Ah. So in the early days Mhmm. People thought, okay. There are laws about Mhmm. What we need to do in terms of accessibility.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. And those are making individual disability accommodations.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Listeners, if you've ever taught a class, you've had a student who had that piece of paper Mhmm. That said, give me extra time on my tests or some other individual thing. Mhmm. And there were laws that said what we should do when we design our materials. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And almost nobody was an expert in those and nobody really followed them to the letter. Mhmm. So when we think about a framework like universal design for learning, it's kind of a hard sell. Right? There's it's a social justice argument.
Thomas Tobin:That's where I started in my advocacy work. Mhmm. The people who had the time, the privilege, the experience to be able to focus on lowering those access barriers in their courses usually, They were the ones who came and and got into it. But it wasn't a widespread argument. So to jump forward twenty seven years Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:My next book is called UDL at Scale. Mhmm. And in it, I very purposefully made an argument to campus presidents Mhmm. Deans, provosts, boards of directors. And I talk about how when we design our engagements with students as institutions, no matter whether that's the classroom Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Student services, support Mhmm. Information technology, the library. Mhmm. When we design all of those kinds of touch points. In a universal way or an inclusive way, that's actually a really good financial decision.
Thomas Tobin:That is not language that I'm used to speaking. At the same time, in my recent career, I've worked an awful lot more with people in high leadership levels in colleges and universities. And they don't talk about social justice when they're just talking with their teams. Really? Talk Brian, you know as well as I do that the main topic is the budget.
Thomas Tobin:It's always the budget.
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, I'll guess somebody has to do that. Right? So I don't want Oh, yeah. I don't wanna poo poo it.
Thomas Tobin:And well, what I want to do is I want to give everybody now language that you can use when you are Mhmm. Asking for time Mhmm. People, money Mhmm. To be able to make these kinds of changes. Because too often, the folks in the president's office say, what are we legally required to do?
Thomas Tobin:And we'll go do that.
Bryan Dewsbury:Which is another way of saying what's the minimum?
Thomas Tobin:That is an astute comment. Yes. And when you make an argument to your president and say, oh, well, we could we could save ourselves a ton of effort here.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:The response is filtered oftentimes through, well, what does that mean for my budget? Mhmm. You know, how does this save me person hours of work? Does this save me actual money? Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And the the biggest argument for universally designed learning experiences and campus experiences. Mhmm. Imagine if you will, that we spend $10
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:To market our institution and recruit new students. First year freshmen, people coming in for a master's degree, people who are new to our campus.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:If we spend $10 marketing, then every term that they're with us, we spend about another $1 in services to them. Mhmm. The library, mental health counseling, academic counseling, IT, all of those things. It's only about a dollar compared to that 10. So what happens if students struggle or they stop out or they drop out?
Thomas Tobin:Or we have to go spend another $10 to find somebody to take that place? When we're thinking about the budget and we think about universally designing our services, we're adding another 50¢ to that dollar. But spending a dollar 50 to save 10 is a really good argument. And so we've got colleges and universities now who around the world have actually done this. They've actually implemented inclusive designs, UDL among them Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Across all of their service touch points, and they have seen their budgets shift and change for the better. It also means that instead of making things on an individual level Mhmm. Like your listeners, I imagine,
Bryan Dewsbury:know
Thomas Tobin:that if you used to have out of 50 students, one or two of them would have disability accommodation paperwork. Mhmm. These days, it's like 14 to 20 Mhmm. People with the paperwork. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Are
Bryan Dewsbury:we And maybe more who who might need it, but haven't.
Thomas Tobin:Absolutely true.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And does this mean that there are suddenly way more disabled people in our universities? Mhmm. Not for the reason that you just mentioned. What it means though is that more people have come up through their experience of school Mhmm. Not having a lot of stigma around difference.
Thomas Tobin:Right. Right. And being more comfortable saying, hey, I treat me differently, do something special for me so that I have a a good enough shot at learning the things.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Thomas Tobin:Right. But our systems were never designed to be able to accommodate that many people at a time. Our systems were designed for, you know, here and there, one and two people. Mhmm. But when it's 40% of your student body asking for one change, one time for one person
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:The system cracks and breaks. Yeah. Yeah. So we, of necessity now, are in a position where everybody is looking for places where we can make some intentional shifts Mhmm. That help us to lower the need for those individual accommodations in the first place.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. We're never gonna get rid of that need. Mhmm. We can make it manageable again and allow our folks who are in support roles and student services roles to really focus now on the more intensive affordances and needs instead of, you know, here's extra time on the test, extra time for this student, extra time for that student, and a note taker for that one. Some of the common things that we see over and over again, we can design for that.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. So let me let's get technical here for just a a little bit, and then maybe this is just me clarifying my own knowledge. Right? So my understanding kind of back to some of the origins of the word, the universal word, and the inclusion piece of it. Right.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? That came out of architecture. And I don't know if that's where the whole thing came out of, but I knew specifically in that field. Part of this idea was if you build, say, a wheelchair ramp to that's next to the stairs that gets to the building, The people who have to use the stairs are not impacted by the fact that you put a a ramp next
Thomas Tobin:to it. Mhmm.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? And the idea here is not that you want to design in such a way that able-bodied people are not adversely affected. That's not my point. The point is that you've now created a scenario where you've normalized access to this building without it becoming a thing. Exactly.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? For anybody. Right? Whether you have a wheelchair, whether you have, you know, crutches, whatever it is, or whether you walk normally. Is that the same mentality that you've okay, I see you're making a face.
Bryan Dewsbury:So tell me, have you seen that sort of, you know, like normal setting?
Thomas Tobin:So so here here here's a question for you then, Ron.
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Thomas Tobin:Do you want the history lesson?
Bryan Dewsbury:I I do. Awesome.
Thomas Tobin:I do. Alright. Listeners, buckle up. 1963
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh.
Thomas Tobin:Ron Mace is an architecture professor.
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh.
Thomas Tobin:In The United States. Uh-huh. He himself is a wheelchair user.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Thomas Tobin:And in 1963, he can't get into flipping any buildings because they all have stairs leading up to their doors.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So he publishes an article about what he calls universal design in the built environment. Mhmm. He says, if we just chopped a little cut in the corner of every curb, then it wouldn't just be wheelchair users who could get across the street. It would be people pushing their children in baby buggies. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:It would be people who were delivering things and they had a handcart with wheels on it and boxes on it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:It would be people on bicycles. Everyone could use the space better because the space was just designed in a universal way
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Thomas Tobin:To provide access to everybody. Right. And your your example of having the ramp next to the stairs for a building, his dream was that we wouldn't have stairs at all, that there would just be a ramp, or that buildings would be designed Yeah. With a level entry to begin with. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:That the the door would be at ground level so that anyone could walk in, roll in, hobble in on their crutches, you name it. Mhmm. Brian, have you ever had to go to the emergency room in a hospital for yourself or for someone else?
Bryan Dewsbury:No. For my well, both actually.
Thomas Tobin:Okay.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:You might not have been paying attention to it at the time Mhmm. But how did you get in?
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, definitely when it was for me. Blood was streaming out from my eye. So I don't quite remember,
Thomas Tobin:but Okay. Fair.
Bryan Dewsbury:But but unfortunately, when my dad passed, like, you know, it was a ER situation first. We got in I mean, I met the ambulance there, but but, you know, it was Ground Floor. It came in through opening Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:No no stairs to get to
Segev Amasay:the emergency room,
Thomas Tobin:any of that. Right. Right. So the driveway where the ambulance pulls up or the the place where you go to the emergency room, there are doors there
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:That will open wide enough to not only to accommodate a wheelchair, but to accommodate a gurney with two people standing next to it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:Someone had to design that entry. Mhmm. Someone had to design the interior of that hospital building. Listeners, I don't know if you're Star Wars fans. You don't have to be Star Wars
Bryan Dewsbury:fans to follow. I might be the only person on this planet who has not seen a single Star Wars.
Thomas Tobin:Okay. Fantastic. Do you judge me now? I do not judge at all. And and so in the Star Wars movies, the original ones from the nineteen seventies Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:George Lucas made a very calculated decision. There are two characters in the Star Wars movies. They're robots. Mhmm. R two d two and c three p
Bryan Dewsbury:o. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:R two d two gets around on wheels. Mhmm. And George Lucas had when he was making the film, he had a a challenge in mind. Mhmm. And he said, well, in most futuristic space cons concepts
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:There's all these grand staircases to get to places. And he said, I wanna have a robot on wheels. So why don't I take the ideas from this universal design and apply it to the universe of space in the future or in the long distant past.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And so if you're in the bad guy's secret weapon, it's a big space station that has many levels in it. There are elevators everywhere. There's you don't see characters using stairs.
Bryan Dewsbury:To
Thomas Tobin:get onto a ship, a ramp drops down out of the spacecraft, and the characters roll or walk or run up this up the ramp. No stairs. So when we think about
Bryan Dewsbury:I wonder how many people who've seen Star Wars have recognized what you just described.
Thomas Tobin:I am actually stealing this idea from other scholars. Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. Okay. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So if we go back to Ron Mace's idea of designing the built environment so that it is multi use on purpose. So that the fewest number of people will have to say, oh, I need something different or that's not accessible to me. We take that idea and we move forward in time to the mid nineteen nineties.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:By then, especially in The United States Mhmm. 1990 was the Americans with Disabilities Act. Idiot. Mhmm. In in 1989, there was a protest where disabled people who use wheelchairs literally got out of their wheelchairs and crawled up the steps of the Congress Building in The United States to protest the fact that there was no law mandating universal design.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So the Americans with Disabilities Act came into being in 1990. Mhmm. And in the mid nineteen nineties, some neuroscientists in Boston Mhmm. At Harvard University and a and a couple other places got together and they said, well, that's universal design for the physical environment. What about learning processes?
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. Because you you've been an advocate, Brian, for years for not just coming into the classroom and teaching how you were taught.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Being mindful about and intentional about understanding what effective teaching looks like in STEM, in lots of different disciplines. Mhmm. So these neuroscientists said, well, we we know a little bit about how people learn things. And can we apply that Mhmm. To the design of the learning experiences that people have?
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And what they figured out was roughly, we need to have a reason why we want to pay attention to something to learn it. Mhmm. We need to have the thing we want to learn, the content. And we need to have a way to practice it or show what we know or play or try it out. And if there was just one way for each of those three phases of the learning process to happen, that left behind people who didn't quite get it or didn't work well within that particular mode.
Thomas Tobin:So the neuroscientist said, okay, the ideal would be if we designed each of the phases of learning, getting started, taking in information, and practice. If we designed multiple ways for each of those things to happen. And there's already a term for that. It's called differentiated instruction.
Bryan Dewsbury:You Also popular K 12.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah, absolutely. Where you see what characteristics your students bring you Mhmm. And then you design for the characteristics that are there in front of
Bryan Dewsbury:you. So then you have to have a mechanism to do that seeing.
Thomas Tobin:Yes. Right? To capture that data. And what the folks in Boston figured out Mhmm. And once they figured this out, they got a a US Department of Education grant and created a company called CAST.
Thomas Tobin:Okay. And that company still exists now, and they just came out with UDL version three.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:But at the very beginning, they figured out that if you wanted to do that ideal Mhmm. You first had to know things about the students who were there in front of you. Mhmm. You also had to have enough time to be able to make those changes. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And you had to have an understanding of the theoretical background of things. Mhmm. What they realized was that you don't that have to do that if you do your design work much earlier in the process. Okay. So before you know even who's going to be there in your learning spaces
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:If you make multiple ways for people to get started and then stick with you even when things get tough, if you make multiple ways for people to get the information and you provide options in an optimized way for people to show what they know or practice, then more of your students are more likely to just follow along, find a path that fits for them in those circumstances. Those were the very beginnings of universal design for learning. Mhmm. So to answer your question very shortly Mhmm. Is UDL related to universal design from back in the sixties?
Thomas Tobin:Conceptually, yes. Mhmm. It's not universal. Mhmm. We're never going to design something that fits everybody.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:But that's the goal. The goal is to lower access barriers in as broad a way as we can so that we reduce the number of people who have to say, do something just for me.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah. You know, okay. Two things two things coming at me. One, and I want to remember the exact word you said, but they said the person had to know three things.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? And the third the third of those three things was some understanding of the theory as to why you're going to do this universal design. Right. Right. So when I heard that, what came to mind is this notion that you can't just be a subject matter expert when you are an instructor.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. That you have to, that the act of teaching, the art and science of teaching is in and of itself its own skill, right? Yes. And that's where, and I'm sure you have experienced this when you do educational development, where it gets a little tricky in the sense that when you and I walk into a room and we're asking people to know our students, understand some sociology, some neuro, you know, understand how learning works and how it impacts the ways in which they approach backward design, we're also not asking them to get PhDs in UDL, right? So we're asking them to know enough to do it well and do it inclusively, right?
Bryan Dewsbury:And I'm just wondering how that has, you know, in your experience doing this kind of supporting work, like how has that part been in getting people to engage in the the intellectual backing of this work?
Thomas Tobin:It's why I still have a job. Because it's hard. Right? So so here so here's the challenge.
Bryan Dewsbury:I know. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:If you are an elementary school teacher or a a high school teacher
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:The government in The United States, in Canada, in lots of other areas of the world Mhmm. Makes you study pedagogy. Makes you study theory and practice and application.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Thomas Tobin:So that you are both an expert in your field. You have a master's degree in your subject area Mhmm. And you have been trained in effective teaching and design techniques.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:That is not true for college and university educators. We hire you because you're a good biologist. You're a good art historian. Mhmm. You're a good nurse.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. And then we throw you into a classroom and say, teach these people. Right? Right. So what we end up with is we end up with people who are teaching how they were taught.
Thomas Tobin:Right. Which for the majority of us, even today Mhmm. Was chalk and talk sustained lecturing. Mhmm. Which is one of the least effective Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Techniques to use in a sustained way over and over again. Lecturing works, but only for short periods of time. Right. Right. You've you've talked about that in some of your other episodes.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. When we talk about universal design for learning, listeners, the biggest cry the biggest criticism of universal design for learning is that it is so complex. Universal design for learning takes an idea that people learn differently and effectively in different circumstances, different times, different ways. Mhmm. Let me unpack that.
Thomas Tobin:Say that more simply.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Please.
Thomas Tobin:You've heard the the theory of visual, auditory
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Kinesthetic learners, those kinds of things. That's debunked science. Mhmm. Right? So there is no primary way that we learn best that sticks with us for our entire lives.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. However, the best way for us to learn shifts and changes based on a lot of things. How much sleep did you get last night?
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:That has a huge impact on whether you're going to learn well by reading something versus listening to the same information on a podcast Yeah. For example. And there's lots of other factors that go into that from moment to moment. Mhmm. So from the perspective of universal design for learning, the complexity, it starts simple.
Thomas Tobin:It starts with there's three different principles. There's three phases of the learning process. Getting started, getting the information, showing what you know. And we can stay at that level for most people. Most people who are teaching or designing, we can say, okay.
Thomas Tobin:Use more than one way to help people get started and stick with it. More than one way to represent the information. More than one way for them to practice or show their show their knowledge. But then each of those three principles is supported by a total of nine guidelines that break things down into engagement, into affect, into practice. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And so those three principles intersect with those three phases of the learning to create nine specific guidelines. Each of those guidelines is supported by anywhere from four to six specific considerations. There's 36 of those. Mhmm. And they go down deep into things like presenting information in more than one format.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. But also helping people understand how they regulate their emotional capacity while they're learning.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And it gets into all those kinds of details. When people first encounter universal design for learning, they'll go on to the cast website and they'll see this grid of 36 things that they think they have to do. And they think, who's got time for that?
Bryan Dewsbury:Holy crap.
Thomas Tobin:Right? Yeah. This is a lot. And they're right. It is a lot.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:Universal design for learning is also not meant to be summative. You don't have to do all 36 things in order to do UDL well. Mhmm. These are all guidelines, suggestions, ideas, things that you can mix and match to fit the situations and the challenges that you see.
Bryan Dewsbury:And so part of your professional support role when you work with an institution or a department or what have you is guiding them through the process of that mixing and matching. Yes. What makes sense for your context.
Thomas Tobin:And if you grew up in a religious context, I
Bryan Dewsbury:know I know
Thomas Tobin:you're a preacher's kid.
Bryan Dewsbury:I did. I did. Did.
Thomas Tobin:Then you know who John the Baptist is, listeners.
Bryan Dewsbury:Oh, I did.
Thomas Tobin:So so he's the guy who says
Bryan Dewsbury:I do, I
Thomas Tobin:should say.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. I did.
Thomas Tobin:So John the Baptist in the in the Christian tradition is the person who said in the Old Testament, someone else is coming, and he's gonna be great. By the way, spoiler alert, it's Jesus. But that was his whole job. His whole job was just saying I
Bryan Dewsbury:forgot that.
Thomas Tobin:His his whole job was saying, hey, someone else is coming, and you should listen to that guy. That's my job. Mhmm. My job is to say, you will learn more about universal design for learning. You'll get to the point where you're picking from among these 36 considerations.
Thomas Tobin:My job is to help you take step zero. Mhmm. My job is to help you say, okay. There's these three principles, but what it really is at its heart, a way to
Bryan Dewsbury:start Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Is plus one thinking. Listeners, you've probably heard me say this in other places, that if there's one way for a learning engagement to happen now Mhmm. And everybody starts with the content, like, if there's one way to get the information, but also if there's one way for students to engage with you as the instructor Mhmm. With support staffers, with each other, with the wider community. There's one way for those things to happen now.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. Plus one. Just make one more way. Mhmm. We talked about that ideal earlier on Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:About if we had all the time and money and resources Yeah. We would make lots and lots of those multiples. Mhmm. But no one has that amount of funding or time or or a team to do that ideal. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So it's it's an aspiration. Yeah. So the so the the best thing we can do is everywhere we see that things aren't going the way we had planned them. Mhmm. Do a little plus one thinking.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. Think about, okay. You're you just gave the lecture of your life. It was great. And then everybody takes the examination, and they get that concept wrong, and you end up having to reteach.
Thomas Tobin:And this happens over and over and over again. That's a lovely place to start doing a little plus one thinking. How can you get that information to them in more than one way? Mhmm. Help them with study guides that are both maybe handout that they can download as a PDF, as well as a quick explainer video from you and say say, hey.
Thomas Tobin:I know people get this confused a lot, so let me walk you through it. Mhmm. And give them the same information in more than one way. Yeah. Or you give the instructions for an activity in your course, and then you get the same email 700 times asking for clarification.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. That's a good place to start doing a little plus one thinking. Right. I want to make universal design for learning something that people understand at an introductory level
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And give them permission not to look at all the complexities yet Mhmm. But to think about where are those pinch points? Where are the places the things aren't going how you planned it? And then apply that very simple plus one idea. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:I want people to act. Yeah. Because if we look at the enormity Mhmm. Of the number of documents we've created that need to be more accessible or the number of interactions where we could create more ways for them to do things, we would suffer from analysis paralysis. It's just so much that we won't even start.
Thomas Tobin:So I want to be John the Baptist. I want to give people
Bryan Dewsbury:You know, I can't I can't see that now. Right? Like, not as you label yourself that. Without being sacrilegious, you did. Anyway, I I had a second thing that came up.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. And it's interest this is not the first time this has happened. You know, I've I've heard you discuss this, but also other people. And what actually lands with me, with with the you part of UDL, is not only are you kind of norming this, it's it's good. Everyone can access this platform, whatever it may be, physical learning, whatever it may be.
Bryan Dewsbury:But but on the flip side of that, you are removing the stigma associating with me being different in this in this physical or learning process way. Right? And I don't know if that was present in any of Ronald Mace's writings, but but it it seems to be a fairly direct consequence of it. Right? And and the example I'll give for my classroom, you know, back at my old job, one big accommodation was extra time on exams.
Bryan Dewsbury:Of course. And I didn't do this to be a hero, but I did certainly ask myself the question, well, why am I timing my exam? Thank you. And you were timing my exam mainly because it was mainly done in a class period and somebody had to use this room after. So we figured out a way to, you know
Thomas Tobin:It's a facilities question.
Bryan Dewsbury:It's a facilities question, right? And so it didn't you know, the nature of the material at that time, it didn't matter to me if you took five, ten extra minutes. Like that doesn't tell me you're a good learner, bad learner. Right? And I get it.
Bryan Dewsbury:When you get to MCAS and all that stuff, that's a whole different beast, but but it it forced some bigger questions about how you would design the space. Right? And once it once the exams were just it's in fact, my exams were open book, you know, essay questions, and everyone's in there. Right? Accommodations and all because the accommodation that they needed or that they started care of in the already taken care of in the design.
Thomas Tobin:Yep. Right.
Bryan Dewsbury:So so was that so back to my question, was that an explicit stigma removing? Was that a kind of explicit goal or was that just a happy consequence or maybe somewhere in between? Don't know.
Thomas Tobin:There's there's there's three and a half things to talk about. Okay. So one, we have to go back to Eugenics.
Bryan Dewsbury:Oh, good god.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. Alright. Alright. So buckle up y'all. We're gonna talk about sensitive topics.
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Thomas Tobin:So in terms of a Eugenic argument
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:From way back in the day Mhmm. Is you have these bumps on your head and so you're obviously smarter than this person who has different bumps on their head. Mhmm. You have this color skin, so obviously you're
Bryan Dewsbury:Whatever.
Thomas Tobin:Oh, yeah. Phrenology. Yeah. Yeah. You have different color skin, so you're obviously much more gifted at athletics and not as smart as someone with different color skin.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Right? Those are those are baldly racist and eugenicist arguments.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Ron Mace, white guy in a wheelchair Mhmm. He wanted to explicitly disavow that kind of eugenicist thinking. Mhmm. So in his universal design work, he wanted to move beyond treating people differently because of their differences.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And his goal was at least for buildings, sidewalks, the built environment generally Mhmm. To design in a way that it didn't matter whether you were disabled, whether you had just broken your leg and you're on crutches temporarily Mhmm. Whether you were pushing a cart that had big heavy boxes on
Bryan Dewsbury:it. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Right? Mhmm. Just wanted to design the environment in a way that the most people could use it easily. Mhmm. He was making a facility argument in the term of ease of use, facile.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:If you move forward a few years, the eugenicists grab that idea and started saying, oh, you you want to you want to, you know, let the cripples go wherever they want and do whatever they want. His answer was, yeah, and everybody else. Mhmm. Mhmm. So he was making a universalist argument.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Okay. You know, that's let me interrupt you because
Thomas Tobin:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:And please keep all your thoughts in your head because it it you actually made me think of eugenics and and this discussion in a way I hadn't before. Right? Because you would know
Thomas Tobin:Say what you mean.
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, yeah, you would know that one of the consequences of eugenics in The United States was that they would sterilize disabled people, I think, Carolina,
Thomas Tobin:Latino women, the
Bryan Dewsbury:was you're not fit to be in this world in your current constitution. And so now, I have to say my mind's blown a little bit because I hadn't seen the UDL as this sort of clear counterpoint. You haven't designed the world in a way, including your behaviors and attitudes, in a way that allows these people to be full humans.
Thomas Tobin:Yes. And this and this is the argument that disability advocates before Ron and after Ron Mhmm. Have tried to make Mhmm. Is to say the variability that you see among human beings. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:We have different skin tones, we're different heights, we have different eye colors, but we also have different ability profiles. Right. Right. That's just natural variability. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Some people are going to need wheelchairs to get around, and that's just part of the natural variability among human beings. Mhmm. Mhmm. So treating somebody as other just because they have a different skin tone than you do or because they have an intellectual disability, or because they use crutches to get around. That's silly.
Thomas Tobin:What Ron Mace did, and he was not the first person to do this, but he was the most famous first.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Was he argued that disability doesn't exist in people's bodies. Yeah. He argued that disability exists in the environment. Mhmm. That if I need a wheelchair to get around and I can't get into the building, it's because you didn't design it so I could get in.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. The disabling feature is in the environment, not inherent in us as humans. Right. Right. And so if we agree to design Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Our learning engagements for UDL, universal design for learning, and our physical environment, universal design. If we agree to design those things in ways that lower barriers for folks Yeah. It means that fewer people have to say, do something different for me or treat me specially. Mhmm. And that leveling effect, that universality is something that disability advocates have been really on about for a long long time, which is, yeah, we're different, so what?
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Thomas Tobin:Right? So let let's create systems and conversations and places and spaces and in learning engagements that just include the biggest number of people. Yeah. Yeah. That's by the way why it's a really good financial decision for your university.
Thomas Tobin:So Good point. Yeah. So that's that's that piece. Yeah. And to to sort of put a point on this part of our conversation.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. Mhmm. When we think about something like universal design for learning as a framework Mhmm. It's just a way to codify the principles of making things easy where ease is called for
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And challenging where challenge is called for. Here's what I mean. Mhmm. During the pandemic, so many of our colleagues fought for any little bit of control that they could. Everything was topsy-turvy.
Thomas Tobin:So, you know, people went back to, you know, turn this in by Wednesday at noon or it's a zero.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:And that kind of procedural stuff, pardon my swearing, but it is actually the title of the article. Mhmm. Jeff Morrow, m o r o listeners. Mhmm. He wrote a an influential article called Against Cop Shit.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And in it, he argued that there's a big difference between procedural rigor. Mhmm. Turn this in by this time or it's a zero. Mhmm. You get docked 10% late points for every day that it's late.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. Mhmm. You have to be in the classroom in order to take the examination. Mhmm. You have to complete the examination within fifty minutes, whatever it is.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. He said that kind of stuff is just policing. Mhmm. That's just that does has nothing to do with whether the students actually know what they're talking about Right. Or not.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. And so when we think about procedural rigor, those are the kinds of barriers that we want to lower with the design processes that I'm talking about. Mhmm. And the paradox here is by lowering those barriers. You had the example of taking the time limit off of your test because it was really about scheduling a room rather than do my students know their stuff.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Two things. One, you can still see how much time people take when they take your exam. Right. Right? Right.
Thomas Tobin:So if somebody takes your exam that you designed to be about an hour Mhmm. And they go through it in ten minutes Mhmm. You want to talk to that student Mhmm. And see, did you send your AI chatbot in here? Right.
Thomas Tobin:Right. So and that's a conversation.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:But you also see that someone completed it successfully in two hours and ten minutes. Mhmm. And And you want to have a conversation with that student for a very different reason. Right. Hey, are you struggling?
Thomas Tobin:Was this challenging for you? Right. Or are you just working more slowly and you feel comfortable?
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:So it's not like we're taking away any guardrails or making things easier for our students.
Bryan Dewsbury:If anything, you're getting more information about the learning process.
Thomas Tobin:Yes. And this is the other side. So if we're talking about procedural rigor, we want to lower those barriers to getting access to the conversation or the activity. Mhmm. Over on the other side though is conceptual rigor.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. This is not you know, if you're teaching a biology course, your students need to understand the difference between meiosis and mitosis in the cell energy transfer process. Mhmm. So if you give them an easier way to think about that or you simplify things for them, you're not doing them a service. Right.
Thomas Tobin:We should keep that level of challenge in our subject matter at a high level. Right. Because that's what college is about. It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be challenging.
Thomas Tobin:It's supposed to be where you learn things you did not know before.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And people confuse procedural rigor and conceptual rigor Mhmm. All the time. And we think that we're guarding the ivory tower
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:By, you know, making sure that these poor snowflakes, you know, they're not gonna get this in the real world. I hate to tell you that they're gonna get this in the real world too, these kinds of accommodations and and understanding. But be that as it may Yeah. The thing that actually helps learners is to have consistent high and challenging expectations for the knowledge and work that they will do. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And then lower the barriers for them to get started with the work in the first place. Yeah. So that'll put a point
Bryan Dewsbury:on Yeah, that part, I thanks for that. Let's
Thomas Tobin:go back
Bryan Dewsbury:in time a little bit. I'm curious about that faculty member who was blind that you helped. Why were you the person who was doing the helping? And what what from that process then what was the next iteration of your work and your deal for?
Thomas Tobin:Oh, fantastic. That was Mhmm. Since we're on the religious metaphors, this is me getting knocked off my horse Uh-huh. Uh-huh. By the bolt of lightning.
Thomas Tobin:This is the Saul story.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:Listeners, you imagine that it is 1996.
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh.
Thomas Tobin:I'm in the middle of my PhD program. By the way, my PhD is in nineteenth century British art history and literature.
Bryan Dewsbury:Very specific. And and
Thomas Tobin:and very not preparing me for what I do today. But at the same time, I was preparing to be a scholarly bibliographer. So this is the last generation of people who were taught how to go into dusty library stacks all around the world and create bibliographies on subjects for other scholars to use in their research.
Bryan Dewsbury:Interesting.
Thomas Tobin:Interesting. But I was the blacksmith right as automobiles were coming in. Right? Right. So, you know, I'm putting horseshoes on horses and databases are coming in.
Bryan Dewsbury:Fortress violin.
Thomas Tobin:Exactly. Hell right. Well, that's exactly right. So I have this really outdated, really mixed set of skills. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:But it also meant that back in the day, taught myself HTML coding. Mhmm. And I taught myself all of those kinds of skills. Mhmm. I got hired by a two year college in Western Pennsylvania to help them adopt their very first online courses.
Thomas Tobin:Listeners, here's how old I really am. I helped them adopt Blackboard version one.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. Alright.
Thomas Tobin:So I'm an old man. I was the I think the title was learning technologies coordinator or something like that. They made up a name for it because it didn't exist before. Uh-huh. And I was helping instructors and faculty members across this two year college Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Think about what kinds of courses and certificates and two year degrees we could stand up for online asynchronous delivery.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Thomas Tobin:And they already had a a wonderful history of doing courses that could get mailed out on videotapes.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. Things like that. So Liberty University, I think, started that back in the mid
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. Yeah.
Segev Amasay:Yeah. Right.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. So, you know, they they've been doing that for the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, but now it was modern times. It was the nineteen nineties. We're gonna do get a CD? That's right.
Thomas Tobin:You think we're kidding. Awesome. So I was helping them design all these online courses. Mhmm. And his name was Marty.
Thomas Tobin:He taught business courses for the college. He came to me and he said, you know, Tom, I think this online is junk, but I wanna have a job in five years. Teach me how to do it. And I thought, know, okay, refreshing honesty.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:What you don't know about Marty is he had gone blind in his forties due to undiagnosed diabetes.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:The short version of the story. We ended up hiring graduate students from a local university to be Marty's eyes and ears. Mhmm. So when students would post things in a discussion forum in the online course or they would send in a file through the Dropbox tool. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:The graduate students would read those things out loud to Marty. Marty would say, oh, good. That's a good point. Respond this way. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Or give give points for this, take points off for that, mark the paper up like this, put this grade in the grade book. Mhmm. It worked wonderfully for the first three times Marty taught the course until I had a vice president standing in my office door saying, we have to shut Marty down. And I said, why? And he looked at me and he said, do you realize how many ways we are violating the FERPA privacy laws just by letting these graduate students see the grade book?
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:So we had to stop. Mhmm. It was that failure that was a pause point for my whole career. Mhmm. I thought if it was this difficult to help one person Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Who's out there whom we are not serving well or maybe not serving at all. Mhmm. And I started to understand there were people who lived in our service area, but they just lived far from campus.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:People with work responsibilities, caregiving for their children or for their parents. Mhmm. Military service. You name the reason Mhmm. Why people were trying to put education into already busy schedules, it was there.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. And I started to think, okay. It's not just disability. Mhmm. That's the barrier.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. That the barrier that we all share is the clock. Mhmm. Mhmm. And so time, how do we use our time?
Thomas Tobin:How do we help our students? And this is where we go way beyond universal design for learning.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:If listeners, I'm about to say something that's going to make you mad. Mhmm. Especially if you teach. Learners do not learn when they are in the classroom with you. Sometimes it happens
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:But it's rare. Mhmm. When they are in the classroom with you, they're watching a demonstration. They're listening to your lecture. They might be getting hands on a little bit.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. But the actual learning comes when they are alone at home Mhmm. Or they're studying with their friends.
Bryan Dewsbury:Putting it together.
Thomas Tobin:Exactly. When they have time to play, ask questions, try things out. Say, why did I get this but not that? Mhmm. And then they come back in and they ask you Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And then the learning happens more.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:But learning actually takes place when people are working on things. Annel Noddings was a wonderful educational theorist. She died in the nineteen nineties. Mhmm. One of her most famous quotes is, the people doing the work are the people doing the learning.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. Mhmm. And we have in our classrooms so few times when we ask our students just to get hands on and try, practice, play, fail, do. Mhmm. Have to turn this in by this date and you get a grade and then we move on to the next thing.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. There's so few opportunities for people to just try something, fail at it, ask questions about it. Because we move them through our educational experiences Mhmm. In, you know, you have to do this in a semester. You have fifteen weeks to do this or eight So weeks to do everywhere that we can help people to understand how to use the time
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:When they're by themselves, after they've put the kids to bed, when they're studying on their own. If we can help them understand better how to learn, how to study, how to practice, we're actually taking work off our own plates. We're actually making it easier on us as well as smoother for the students. Again, without reducing the conceptual rigor of what
Bryan Dewsbury:we're teaching. So all of this can a came from the Marty experience.
Thomas Tobin:Yes. Okay. That was that that changed my entire career. Yeah. If I hadn't met Marty Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:I would probably be at the Modern Language Association conference right now presenting on Pre Raphaelite painters in the nineteenth century in England.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Or or you'd be working for a database company.
Thomas Tobin:One of the two.
Bryan Dewsbury:You know, it it makes me actually wanna be on a panel with you one day where maybe somebody asks each of us what our kind of
Thomas Tobin:Oh, the origin story.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah. Our road to the master's moment. You wanna stick with bible metaphor.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. Right.
Bryan Dewsbury:So let me let me ask you one more question before I get you out of here. And I think I can say this publicly because it's on your website. You you you on your website, you you label yourself as being autistic.
Thomas Tobin:Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:I'm curious if you're willing to share when did that realization happen and in what ways did it impact your work, your message, your how your message is received or any all of the above.
Thomas Tobin:Fantastic question and thank you for asking it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Listeners,
Thomas Tobin:this might not be a shock to anyone who knows me. But up until I turned 53 Wow. I was just a weird person. Mhmm. Right?
Thomas Tobin:I was never diagnosed with anything when I was younger. Mhmm. I was just the awkward misfit kid who happened to really like science and literature and math and all the subjects. I was the valedictorian in my high school graduating class. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Got scholarships for undergraduate and graduate work, like and I thought this was just because I had the grit. I was applying myself and I worked hard at it Mhmm. And so on and so on and so The fact that I eat the exact same thing for lunch every day Mhmm. Never really occurred to me as a sign. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:The fact that, for example, I I have little quarter sheets of recycled paper that I keep my notes on Mhmm. And my handwriting is literally two or three millimeters tall. Mhmm. So the micrographia is also apparently one of those indicator signs for autism. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:So says my my provider. Mhmm. But I was always an advocate for the rights of people who otherwise weren't getting a fair shake in higher education. Yeah. Wanted to be there to help lower barriers for people who came from disadvantaged backgrounds, people who didn't have the same level of preparation as more privileged people did, folks with disabilities, you name
Bryan Dewsbury:it. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And after many years in the field, the recent conversations about neurodiversity and more people claiming neurodiverse identities, It's a social identity. It's not a medical one. Mhmm. I got curious. I thought, well, I kind of fit the popular magazine quiz version of this.
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. I wonder if it's useful for me to get a medical diagnosis.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:So I reached out. Apparently, if you want to be diagnosed with ADHD or autism or those kinds of things and you're under the age of four, just about any practitioner around the corner can help you with that. Mhmm. As an adult though, there's only a couple of dozen practitioners in The United States. I was fortunate that one of them was only a couple hours away from me in Pittsburgh.
Thomas Tobin:So I called the gentleman up in January. Mhmm. And I said, hey. I'd like to do this testing. I have a good career.
Thomas Tobin:I'm fairly stable. I have, you know, some I have the funds. I have the time. I have the interest. Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:And he said, oh, great. You know, I'd I'd love to work with you. Mhmm. This was January. I said, oh, great.
Thomas Tobin:When can I come in? He said, how about December? So these few dozen people are very busy
Bryan Dewsbury:right now.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. Went in in December, took a battery of tests, and in 2025 Mhmm. Phone call with the provider. And I've never been more nervous than the night before that phone call. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, what if all my tests come back, like, right down the middle normative?
Thomas Tobin:Mhmm. There's nothing there. Mhmm. You've just been playing at or pretending or this isn't real. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. So first question, I I said, so what are the results? He said, well, I I can tell you from a clinical perspective, you have autism. Mhmm. And I said, oh, was it was it a hard decision?
Thomas Tobin:Was I right there on the borderline? And he said, I'm going to use nonclinical language now. You are flamingly autistic. And I and I said, okay.
Bryan Dewsbury:I would say that's very clinical. That's clinical.
Thomas Tobin:Was being cautious. Right? So in terms of, like, processing speed and ability to hold multiple ideas at once and knowing how many jelly beans are in the jar at the county fair, I'm way up on the scale.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Thomas Tobin:And social interactions, understanding social cues, knowing when people are mad at me or flirting with me or or disgusted with me
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:I don't pick up on that terribly well at all. And I've had to learn that sort of anthropologically over time. Yeah. None of this was news to me. But having the diagnosis meant that I could stand from within the community for which I was advocating.
Thomas Tobin:There's a saying in disability spaces, nothing about us without us. And it's wonderful now to have a membership card
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:That I
Bryan Dewsbury:am part Have people responded to you differently? I mean, I know this is only twelve months.
Thomas Tobin:Right? But Well, it's people people have responded to me differently, not in social situations or advocacy situations. In fact, a lot of folks who are part of the neurodivergent or neurodiverse community Mhmm. Have said, you know, thank you very much for standing up and for being public and vocal about this because listeners, I'm an old gray haired cisgender heterosexual white man.
Bryan Dewsbury:I Boy is not that old.
Thomas Tobin:I take Okay. But but alright. I've had a career. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Thomas Tobin:Train up. And and because of that, I checked all kinds of boxes for unexamined privilege.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:If I can use some of that privilege to stand up and say things Mhmm. Where other people might feel that they would get a lot of blowback for
Bryan Dewsbury:it. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:Yeah. I'm going to do it. Right? I'm going to stand up and say, here are things that you need to know about this community of
Bryan Dewsbury:people. And
Thomas Tobin:then, you know, at for example, my own personal situation, like, at work. Mhmm. I claimed a disability accommodation. Mhmm. Then I'm since this is ongoing, I can just say shenanigans started.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Thomas Tobin:Right. And those things are still ongoing now. So I I won't say more about that.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. I understand. Understand.
Thomas Tobin:But but the this is actually a very typical experience of someone that when they start asserting their rights, when they start saying
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:That they're going to be Mhmm. Working in a different way or they want accommodations or something. And that leads then to people treating you differently. I've had the I'm going to treat you differently because I now respect the decision that you've made to come out publicly. Yeah.
Thomas Tobin:And I've also had the I'm going to treat you differently because I see you as other or a threat or, you know, I don't know how to react with you, so I'm going to respond badly. Yeah. So I've I've seen both the good and the bad side of that coin.
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, Tom, I really appreciate you spending some time with us telling us your story. You have a book coming out soon. We'll we'll we'll well, I think this will go live in spring. We're interviewing in fall at a conference. So hopefully by then, I can tell the audience more about it.
Bryan Dewsbury:But but
Thomas Tobin:thank you
Bryan Dewsbury:so so so much.
Thomas Tobin:Brian, it's been a pleasure. Listeners, thank you for listening. And if you would like to tell me your story, I'd like to hear it. So Mhmm. Get in touch with the links that we're gonna put on the website, and I'd love to take twenty minutes and talk with you too.
Thomas Tobin:Brian, thanks for having me.
Bryan Dewsbury:Thanks, Don. Knowledge Unbound is brought to you by the Rios Institute for Racially Just Inclusive Open STEM Education. We are generously funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Thanks to our guest today, doctor Thomas Tobin. Congratulations on the release of your book.
Bryan Dewsbury:Our producer as always, mister Segev Amasai. Segev, you were telling me off camera that I mean, I know we do a lot of these episodes, and you cannot connect to different ones in different ways. This one, you said you especially connected to. You wanna tell us why?
Segev Amasay:This one definitely hit close to home as someone who is also on the autism spectrum. I realized in my online courses, which I've taken a lot of during my time here at FIU, it's like they throw everything at you all at once. And I don't know, it just kind of feels overwhelming. It's like I'm not really able to approach the material the way I want, and it's it's kinda, like, put a barrier on on me for, like, trying to learn what I need to learn in order to advance.
Bryan Dewsbury:Does that mostly happen in the online courses, or do face to face has that issue as well?
Segev Amasay:Face to face, I don't really have that much of an issue unless it's, like, materials I'll have to look at, like, after Mhmm. The course because I still get to interact with the teacher for a certain period of time. Yeah. But online is just they just throw everything at you. It's like, figure it out.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right. So So was there anything that he shared that was useful or or I don't know. Maybe commiserating in in in your experience?
Segev Amasay:Well, he talked about wanting to lower the barrier for people that were going through the same thing I was
Bryan Dewsbury:going. Okay.
Segev Amasay:So that's one of the ways I I particularly resonated with this episode. And, you know, it's it's really refreshing to see that, you know, you're not alone in those situations.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. And and I think for me, I I loved how he he didn't speak of this as a problem to be fixed per se. Like, he didn't he didn't set people like yourself up as, like, we need to solve SIGF. Right? He you know, his his approach, his universal design for learning approach is saying, if we design structures and think about all the people who have to use those structures, then you will design in such a way that a SIG EV won't get overloaded by an you know, a plethora of online information.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? You would have considered that in advance. And I think that that idea, say inclusive way of of thinking about your teaching is is not so much unique, but it's something I just want people to internalize. Right? And it's not just about disability.
Bryan Dewsbury:It's not just about people on the spectrum. It's about knowing who your students are, all your students, and designing for their ultimate success. Thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed this week's episode. See you next week and continue to be excellent teachers.
Thomas Tobin:If you make multiple ways for people to get the information and you provide options in an optimized way for people to show what they know or practice, then more of your students are more likely to Right. Just follow along. Find a path that fits for them in those circumstances.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Those were the very beginnings of universal design for learning. Mhmm. So to answer your question very shortly
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Thomas Tobin:Is UDL related to universal design from back in the sixties? Conceptually, yes. It's not universal. We're never going to design something that fits everybody.
Segev Amasay:Right.
Thomas Tobin:Right. But that's the goal. The goal is to lower access barriers in as broad a way as we can so that we reduce the number of people who have to say, do something just for me.