Using Exit Tickets

Dec. 10, 2020 • Studies Weekly

Grades: All

Strands: All

Why: (Purpose of Exit Tickets)

  • Deep Learning
    • Exit tickets give students frequent opportunities to develop character, collaborate with their peers, communicate effectively, ask the right questions, and think critically about what they are learning
  • Higher Student Achievement
    • Exit tickets provide students with frequent opportunities to receive feedback, which gives them a picture of their progress toward learning goals and what they can do to improve
  • Student Engagement
    • Provide information teachers can use as feedback to modify instruction and learning activities
  • Growth Mindset
    • Gives students frequent opportunities to reflect, engage in metacognitive thinking, and develop critical dispositions for lifelong learning

What: (Description of Teaching Strategy)

Exit tickets are one type of formative assessment characterized by their timing: at the end of a learning period. As the name implies, students complete these formative assessments on their way out of the classroom. They are an easy and effective tool to gather and use student feedback to adjust future instruction.

Exit tickets can be formal or informal and take a variety of forms, depending on the learning outcome or objective.

  • Norms:
    • Use exit tickets frequently and without grades to assess learning outcomes or objectives without risk of failure.
    • Use exit ticket feedback to help students understand their progress, identify ways to improve, and provide encouragement.

How: (How to Set Up the Strategy)

  1. Identify the learning outcome or objective you wish to assess, and select or design an exit ticket assessment that gives feedback about that learning outcome or objective.
  2. At the end or beginning of the learning experience, introduce and explain the exit ticket and how students should complete and submit it before they exit the classroom.
  3. At the end of the learning experience, facilitate the assessment by working with students individually or in small groups to complete their exit tickets.
  4. Review and discuss the feedback from the exit ticket with students to help them understand their progress and ways they can improve.

Virtual Application of the Teaching Strategy:

  1. In a virtual environment, exit tickets can still be facilitated with some minor adjustments.Teachers can administer exit tickets frequently and efficiently using a collaborative document like Google Docs or Google Slides, and then having students update a digital KWL chart at the end of a learning experience. By having students consistently describing something they learned as well as something they want to learn in the future, teachers can assess student learning and adjust their instruction.Teachers can also utilize a virtual poll like Google Forms or PollEverywhere to assess student learning, using a variety of test questions or feedback prompts. They can also ask students for feedback about the lesson and what could be done to improve it to support their learning.

    Despite the limitations of a virtual environment, any exit ticket can be facilitated collaboratively by using a virtual meeting application like Zoom or Google Meet to engage students in discussions about their exit tickets, using protocols like Think, Pair, Share. Students can be placed in groups, using breakout rooms, so they can collaborate with others to share and compare their work before submitting their exit tickets.

Face-to-Face Application:

n a physical environment, teachers often use sticky notes as exit tickets for students to write on, discuss, and submit. Formative assessments like the KWL Chart can be used in combination with collaboration strategies like Think, Pair, Share to design quick and efficient exit tickets.

Small KWL Chart
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