Diagnostic Learning Casebook

A marked answer is not just a score. It is evidence about where the learning process held and where it broke. This casebook shows how to move from visible work to a useful next decision without jumping immediately to more worksheets, more hours or a permanent label.

The working sequence is problem → evidence → diagnosis → intervention → measurement → recovery decision. Begin with something observable: a wrong answer, an unfinished paragraph, a method that appears only after prompting, a timing collapse or a skill that disappears when the question changes. Then ask which first decision failed and what fresh task would test the repair.

How to use a diagnostic case

• Start with the actual attempt. Preserve what the learner did before correction.
• Separate symptom from cause. A low mark can come from recall, interpretation, method choice, language, timing or transfer.
• Find the first broken mechanism. Repairing the earliest useful dependency often changes several later errors.
• Choose the smallest useful intervention. Teach, model or practise only what the evidence justifies.
• Retest on fresh work. The correction is not complete until the learner can use it without the old answer visible.
• Escalate when the problem is systemic. If several mechanisms fail together, use the Recovery Atlas to decide whether the next move is protection, consolidation, recovery, adaptation or rebuilding.

Four questions that keep diagnosis honest

• What can the learner already do independently?
• Where does the work first become unreliable?
• What evidence would distinguish one possible cause from another?
• What fresh performance would count as a meaningful change?

A diagnostic explanation is provisional. “Method selection may be the weak link” is more useful than “the student is weak at Mathematics” because the first statement can be tested. Good diagnosis narrows uncertainty; it does not pretend that one worksheet proves everything.

Choose the next route

• Student Diagnostics — inspect the work and locate the first broken learning mechanism.
• Learning Problems — investigate repeated patterns such as forgetting, slow work, weak transfer or recurring errors.
• Examination Performance — use marked papers, timing and assessment conditions as evidence.
• Learning Intervention — decide what practice, feedback, teaching or support should change.
• Recovery Atlas — map a wider setback when several parts of the system are failing together.
• The Library — return to the subject knowledge and worked guides needed for the repair.

Examples in this casebook and connected recovery pages are teaching illustrations unless a source is explicitly identified. They are designed to make reasoning visible, not to diagnose medical or psychological conditions or promise examination outcomes.