When is it ok to pull the plug? Reimagining the post GPT classroom. With Lily Abadal and Nidhi Sachdeva

Phil is joined by Lily Abadal and Nidhi Sachdeva to talk about reducing device reliance, rebuilding in-class writing, and using technology with clear pedagogical intent. Lily describes redesigning written assessments by breaking the traditional term paper into smaller in-class, long-form writing components, encouraging device-free classroom culture without heavy policing, and emphasizing silence, reflection, discussion, and mentorship. 

Nidhi brings research from cognitive science to bear on tech-related concerns like distraction, cognitive load, and outsourcing thinking. She guides us through the limitations of flipped learning, and why we might want to bring some COVID legacy independent tasks back into the classroom. 

We also lay out the stall for why personalised feedback, workbooks and visible teacher investment in students are things worth hanging on to.

Speaker bios

Lily Abadal is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Philosophy Department at the University of South Florida - St. Petersburg. She specializes in normative ethics, applied ethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of psychology. Her recent interests include moral injury, character formation, and AI Ethics. She explores all things through a Neo-Aristotelian lens. 

She’s interested in helping mission-centered schools design pedagogical strategies, develop integrity-centered policies, re-imagine assessments that align with their values, and encourage genuine character formation in the age of AI.

Lily writes about all of the above on her Substack, Wisdom in the Machine Age: https://substack.com/@wisdominthemachineage 

You can also find more information on her website: https://www.drlilyabadal.com/

Nidhi Sachdeva is a leading Canadian Science of Learning researcher, specializing in evidence-informed learning design, post-secondary education, and educational technology. She teaches online learning and microlearning from a cognitive science perspective at OISE’s Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the University of Toronto. A recognized expert in translating educational research into practical classroom strategies, she has been featured on numerous podcasts and currently serves as Chair of researchED Toronto.

Check out Nidhi’s Science of Learning Substack.  Listen to Nidhi’s previous TELSIG podcast appearance on education myth busting. 

Further reading

Abadal, L.M. (2025) Only the Humanities can save the university from AI. [Online]. Public Discourse. Available at:  https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2025/07/98429/ [Accessed 23 January 2026]. 

Kirschner, P. (2025), When phones go out the window, learning comes in the door. [Online]. Krischnered. Available at: http://www.kirschnered.nl/2025/11/01/when-phones-go-out-the-window-learning-comes-in-the-door/ [Accessed 23 January 2026].

Oakley, B., Johnston, M. Chen, K, Jung, E. and Sejnowski, T.  (2025). The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI. [Preprint]. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.11015

Timecodes

00:00 Intro  02:34 Lily’s background: ChatGPT forces a rethink of assessment 04:08 Rebuilding the term paper: in-class slow writing and device-free culture 08:29 Nidhi’s stance: thoughtful EdTech (not a tech war) 12:30 Offloading vs outsourcing: what cognitive science says about AI/tech 15:45 What is the classroom for now? Mentorship, practice, and attention 18:29 Lily’s new class design: handouts, recall, annotation, discussion 30:03 Lessons learned from flipped teaching 35:40 The practicalities of unplugging in Higher Ed 37:21 Lily’s case against ChatGPT in Philosophy 44:46 Distinguishing EdTech from AI and social media 53:48 In-class writing as an alternative to exams 55:04 Workbooks and human feedback 01:02:02 Beyond essays: low-Stakes Mastery Quizzes & Assessment for Learning 01:03:25 Why Handwriting Works: Engagement, Cognitive Science & Iterating as a Teacher