Why Accessible Assessment Design Matters

In this episode of Voices from the Classroom, Madi Capuano, a Business and Arts student majoring in Media and Communications, shares her experience engaging with accessible and inclusive assessment design through a universal assignment template initiative. 

 

Madi reflects on how unclear, inconsistent, or overly complex assessment instructions can create unnecessary anxiety and overwhelm, particularly for students juggling multiple units across different faculties. She explains how consistent structure, clear expectations, and well-organised information reduce cognitive load and allow students to focus their energy on learning and producing quality work, rather than decoding requirements. 

 

Drawing on her experience as a neurodivergent student, Madi highlights why accessible assessment design benefits all students, not just those with formal adjustments. She discusses how structured templates, clear headings, and embedded support links make learning more navigable, support confidence, and even enable students to use tools like AI responsibly as accessibility supports. The conversation reframes accessibility as fairness, clarity, and empowerment, rather than exception-making. 

 

This episode invites educators to consider how universal, transparent assessment design can support smoother transitions into university, reduce student anxiety, and create more equitable learning environments. 

What is Voices From The Classroom: What I Wish My Lecturers Knew?

An Equity-First Students as Partners Podcast.
Student Stories in Higher Education.

00:00:01 POPPY
You're listening to Voices from the Classroom, the podcast that bridges the gap between students and educators. I'm Poppy.

00:00:07 JAMIE
And I'm Jamie.

00:00:08 POPPY
And we're your hosts for today's episode. Thank you for being here.
Today we're exploring why accessible assessment design matters. We'll hear from Deakin student Madi about how clearer, more inclusive assessment helps everyone feel more confident and supported and set up for success.
Joining us is Madi, a Business and Arts double degree student majoring in media and communications, and minoring in literature.
Madi was part of the recent CoLabs exploring the potential universal assessment task template, and she's here to share what she wishes lecturers knew about accessible assessment.

Thankyou so much for that. So now I'm going to ask the big question. In this subject, what do you wish your lecturers knew?

00:00:48 POPPY
Welcome back to a nother episode of the Voices from the Classroom podcast.
If this is your first time listening to the podcast, our mission is to provide a platform to amplify the lived experiences of students, particularly those from equity cohorts, who face unique challenges and bring invaluable insights into the university com munity.
Through this, we aim to start conversations between students and educators, fostering a deeper understanding of the diverse realities shaping student engagement, motivation and success.

It is important to note that while this is a Students as Partners project supported by the Equity First Students as Partners team, the thoughts, views and stories here are our own. We speak from our experiences and those of other students we're connected with, not behalf on any institution or group.
Today we're joined by the wonderful Madi. Madi, can you start by telling us a bit about yourself, your studies, how you first got involved with the CoLabs and conversations around assessment design?

00:01:43 MADI
Hey guys, thanks for having me. I'm Madi. I study Business and Arts, I'm currently majoring in media and communications and event management, and I'm minoring in literature.
So I love everything creative, but I also really see the value in business. I was really drawn to Deakin because Deakin loves to value their students. And it was really important for me that I was somewhere that is a student's first place instead of somewhere that sort of relies on the textbook or their prestige, I wanted to be somewhere where I knew once I stepped out of university I was going to be comfortable in the world and Deakin really fit that.
I got involved with the CoLabs by, I was doing an employability unit for my arts degree and the unit chair suggested that I go onto do the CoLab for doing like focus questions based on the new assignment template.
So yeah, I went in and it looked really good and everybody was really lovely and I was really happy with how the assignment template looked and I really value that sort of a thing and making everything accessible. So I was really excited to be involved in that.

00:02:57 POPPY
So Madi, for the listeners who don't know, can you tell us a little bit about the OneDea kin project?
00:03:02 MADI
Sure. So the OneDeakin project is a project run by the DLF, and it's essentially to make an assignment template universal for all of the lecturers at Deakin.

00:03:16 JAIMIE
What sort of stood out to you the first time you saw this new prospective template?

00:03:21 MADI
So I had first seen the beta version of the assignment template in my employability unit. And at first I was really taken aback because it was so different to anything that I'd seen before, which is kind of a shock to the system, But I ended up really liking it. lhas everything that I need in it, and it makes all of the information really accessible. And what I really liked about it is down the bottom, they've put so many different resources for “if this isn't enough, there's more that we can do to help you”, which a lot of teachers don't really think to put in because they assume the students can just go and find that. So I really loved that aspect of it.

00:04:05 JAMIE
It's like the one stop spot for everything, like ease of access. 00:04:08 NADI
Yes, it had absolutely everything that I wanted. I was really, at first, I was quite upset that it wasn't like a downloadable Word document because I love doodling on my assignments and writing notes and highlighting and different things.
And when I brought up this concern, I found out that there's actually an accessibility button down the bottom. And you can do kind of anything with that, which was awesome. You can download it, you can turn it into a reading, like it reads to you what's on the page. You can turn it into something that you can input into a different app. Like it had everything that you wanted on it, which was amazing.

00:04:46 POPPY
That's so interesting. I haven't seen it, but I'm really excited to.
Did anything on the assessment template make expectations clearer at all? 00:04:54 NADI
Yeah, so the way that they've formatted it was amazing because right up the top I have everything that you really want to know, like what's the word count, what format are you writing in, what referencing style
you need.

And then right below that they have sort of a little biography of what they want you to do, what's going on. And then below that you have like your rubric.
So you've got your structure of “this is everything that you have to meet. This is what we want you to do, and this is how we're going to grade you”, which was perfect. That's how I want everything to be structured in my life.

00:05:26 JAMIE
Sounds very thorough. How do you think, like that sort of consistent and clear structure sort of impacts your experience doing assessment tasks? Obviously, you haven't used it in a real unit setting yet, but what do you think it's going to look like?

00:05:40 MADI
I think it's really important to have consistency in how assignments are structured, because I work across two faculties. And in those two faculties, I'm doing 4 units a semester, 8 units a year. And each lecturer is going to do something different.
So I'm spending half my time learning what each lecturer structures their assignments as, and that's a lot. That's 8 different ways to lea rn. Yeah, it sort of breaks the ice on each assignment. I don't feel sca red to go and have a look at what's going on because I know where everything is.
I think a really good story to sort of demonstrate this is in one of my units, we had a folder and then within that folder, we had five different documents and this is all for the one assignment. So if you wanted to find something, you needed to go into the right folder, you needed to find the right document and then from there, you needed to collect all of the information. And the issue wasn't that the information wasn't there, it was just so much information that I was overwhelmed. I have ADHD, so I sort of struggle with information overload and that sort of a thing.
So what I had to end up doing was spend like a long time compiling everything and structuring it in a way that I could understand, which took so long, as you can imagine. And then I needed to actually do the assignment and I had to chat with my lecturer about what do they actually want. It's such a long process just to see the vision that the lecturer has for the assignment so that I can deliver the content that they want.

00:07:21 JAMIE
And learning content shouldn't, like, you shouldn't have to learn how to learn the things that you're performing for.

00:07:26 MADI
We did that in high school. We learned how to learn in high school. And I think it's really important to note that I went straight from high school into university. I didn't do a gap year. I didn't do another certificate or anything. I went straight from high school into university, and high school is so structured.

00:07:44 POPPY
So different.

00:07:45 MADI
Everything's the same. Everything's the same.

00:07:48 POPPY
I was the same. I finished high school in December and I started university in the March. And I remember my first day of uni. I was like, “I can't do this. Like, I'm never going to adjust to this”.

00:08:01 MADI
Every high school in Victoria is based off of the VCE system and therefore every school, whilst it's different, it has to follow that VCE curriculum. And to go from that to every lecturer is doing whatever they want, and structuring everything however they want was a big turn for me.

00:08:21 JAMIE
Even as I'm someone who had a gap year and worked in very non-academic spaces, and then to come back and not only reorientate myself to how to function in an academic space, but also do that in two different schools under the same faculty and with four different classes that are all structured slightly differently. So it serves people who went straight from high school into uni, and then mature age learners and everyone in between as well. Like I think everyone can benefit.

00:08:46 MADI
Absolutely.

00:08:47 POPPY
Madi, I'm curious, what kind of difference can transparency make to student confidence and motivation, do you think?

00:08:55 MADI
I think it's huge. I think it's really underestimated how scary it is for some students to need to start an assignment, especially, I know a lot of students have a lot of assignments due at

the same time and you have to process a lot of information really quickly. So the turnaround for that is intimidating. We have to figure out what's going on for each assignment and then sort of plan our content.
So to make everything look similar and to have all of the information in the right spot is huge because it breaks the ice for us. It really takes down one of the hurdles to getting an assignment done, which I really value that because I really struggle with if I've got more than one thing I need to do, I'm not doing any of it. So it just really, it takes down one hurdle for me to sit there and be able to do that.
And another thing as well is when all of the information is structured the way that it is in the assignment template, it really helps with accessibility because Al is becoming really big.
So to have all of the information structured as it is, that can then get put into Al and you can request that restructured kind of any way that you want. So it really opens the door to use Al as an accessibility tool to restructure anything in the best way for each individual student.

00:10:19 POPPY
Kind of reframing it from like a really negative thing, which a lot of universities a re framing it as to actually something that can help us in a really positive way.

00:10:27 MADI
Absolutely. It tailors and customizes template, the template for each student and makes it so much more accessible. So I really value Al in that regard. It's not creating something new, it's just telling me information in a way that I can understand.

00:10:42 POPPY
Yeah, were there parts of the design that supported different learning or communication styles?

00:10:48 MADI
Absolutely. I think, again, the most important part was all of the information that it provides down the bottom, because that gives you links to things like the Disability Resource Centre and how to use an access plan and anything else to use to work out what's going on.
If you need that little extra help, you're not overwhelmed with, I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go, I have to go and find everything on my own which is really helpful.
I also really, really like how everything comes with a heading. Everything is structured.
There's links to things if you need the link to things. And it sort of gives you a little fact sheet

up the top. So if you just want to do a quick glance to see what's going on, it's right up the top. If you want to go more in depth, it's just a bit further down.

00:11:38 POPPY
You've mentioned before that you have ADHD yourself. So I'm curious, why is inclusive assessment design important for all students, not only those with accommodations?

00:11:49 MADI
So Deakin really prides itself on the fact that it's an inclusive campus. They really pride themselves on the fact that everyone can come to and everyone has the right to learn. And this assignment template is another step in that direction. Everyone has the right to learn. Everyone deserves to be able to understand things in a way that everyone is capa ble of.
And to individualize and customize that sta rts with everybody has the same basic
information.
So I think it's really important on that front, not just with the assignment template, but as a whole that Deakin follows through with their want to be inclusive and the fact that everybody does have a right to education in a way that's accessible to them.

00:12:38 POPPY
Have you yourself found assignments prior to this new template difficult having ADHD or
what, like what's your thoughts with that? 00:12:48 NADI
I have been really lucky to have the accommodation that if I get multiple assignments at once, that's a really big struggle for me. I get very overwhelmed and I find myself in a little bit of a paralysis, which I'm sure many people can relate to. And the accommodation that I get is I get to space them out a little bit more. So I get to sit down and process the information step by step rather than feeling so overwhelmed. And the assignment template really helps with that because I can sort of go through and do the same first steps for each assignment, which means that I don't have to have as big of a break in between assignments. I can sort of do everything one step at a time in a way that makes sense to me. And it's all very similar, which I really like. If I have to do something very different at the start between assignments, I'm going to feel overwhelmed and like I can't do it.

00:13:43 POPPY
Do you think the new template will make that easier?

00:13:47 MADI
Absolutely I do. I think that if all of the information is in the same spots and everything looks the same, I'm going to feel more inclined to do it because it doesn't feel too different to what I'm doing.

00:14:00 POPPY
It's kind of like, “okay, I've seen this before. I just have to follow the steps that I've followed in the past. It's different content, but it's the same”.
It allows me to structure a sort of a routine in how I attack assignments, which is good because I really like routine when I'm doing something. And it makes me feel like I'm progressing because I can have a routine, have my steps in place for how I'm going to complete the assignment, and I get to go through and check each of the boxes. The one checklist, the one routine suits kind of all of the assignments when they're all structured similarly. Whereas I would have to add a step for I need to understand five different documents, which is five different steps in my brain. And I have to go talk to a teacher to understand how they've structured something else for a different assignment. It can all become very overwhelming as steps get added when things aren't the same.

00:14:53 POPPY
Yeah. How do you think this might help neurodivergent or first in family students navigate university more smoothly and ultimately have more success?

00:15:04 MADI
I think that coming up with a similar assignment template is very similar to how things functioned in high school. So high school is really amazing because it sets you up to learn how to learn and it really builds your foundations in what does education look like, how do I do that? And to have a smoother transition from high school into university, because things are structured quite similarly, it makes it a little less scary to go to university.
So I think that would really help with people who are new to university, people who are going to struggle a little bit more with the transition, because it's just that little bit smoother, everything's just that little bit more of the same. You've already learned how to learn, you just need to focus on the content now.

00:15:52 POPPY
Thank you so much for that. So now I'm going to ask the big question. In this subject, what do you wish your lecturers knew?

00:15:59 MADI
I wish that my lecturers knew that I want to do well in your assignments. I want to do things the way that you want me to do them, but I want to understand how you want me to do them. So help me understand.

00:16:12 POPPY
That is the perfect response. Thank you. It's concise, it's perfect.
Madi, thank you so much for sha ring your insights. Your reflections show how accessible assessments design isn't just about templates. It's about fairness, clarity, and helping every student succeed.
Thank you so much for coming in today. I've really enjoyed hearing you speak about this and I'm sure a lot of listeners will too.

00:16:37 MADI
Thank you guys so much for having me. I've really enjoyed talking on this subject.

00:16:41 POPPY
Thankyou.

00:16:42 JAMIE
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Voices from the Classroom.
We hope Madi's story provided some valuable insights that could potentially be considered as part of your education provision.
If you found today's discussion engaging, don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss our next episode. We also welcome any suggestions of topics you'd like us to delve into or experiences to be shared.
If you're a staff member listening, we hope today's episode inspires you to think about how your assessment design can make a real difference.
Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep connecting. These aren't just our stories. They're calls for empathy, understanding, and change.