I have included diagnostic assessment in my portfolio as an artifact as this is an essential part of the classroom in developing an understanding of student ability during a lesson Being able to pre-assess students creates a better understanding for the teacher to develop a new way of presenting information if there is a lack of understanding as well as a way to see if students are understanding completely. Not only is this a good tool for teachers to have in the classroom but the students are also able to see where they need to push themselves in their learning, in order to get over barriers and grow. This is an important artifact in the context of classroom management, for example, teachers are notice if students are not understanding the information. They may be struggling with the content and therefore need intervention in order to succeed. Classroom management can be seen as an important part to diagnostic assessment as students may exhibit lack of interest if the content is too hard or easy, and this is where teachers are able to differentiate the content in order to develop a continued interest in the content that they are learning about.
Diagnostic assessment is a pre-assessment that allows you to create a better understanding of students strengths, weaknesses, knowledge and skills prior to presenting a lesson. Diagnostic assessment is used to help guide the development of lesson planning to ensure that students are learning information to their best ability. The teacher gathers this information to better understand what students can and cannot do based on their knowledge and skills prior to the start of the lesson. Diagnostic, formative and summative assessment has recently changed names and are now called assessment for, as and of learning. “The essential distinction is that assessment for learning is used in making decisions that affect teaching and learning in the short term future, whereas assessment of learning is used to record and report what has been learned in the past” (Growing Success). Overall, the information gathered in assessment for learning helps guide the teacher in monitoring student progress as well as help teachers develop differentiated lessons and assessments in the future.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growsuccess.pdf
Teaching Apples 
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