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The Formative Assessment Hero Your Students Need
Exit tickets are a quick, formative assessment tool that teachers can use to measure student understanding.
They can be a short writing prompt or reflection question about their learning and can be digital or physical. Generally used at the end of a class where students write their responses on a paper slip or respond digitally. The teacher can then analyse the responses to help inform next steps in their teaching.
Exit tickets are used to gauge how well students are following along in class and what they still need help with. They can also provide individualized feedback to students and help identify learning needs to inform next steps in terms of teaching and learning.
In this article, we’ll explain the benefits of exit tickets, and offer tips for using them in your own classroom and provide example questions.
Black and William (2012) refer to exit tickets as a form of classroom assessment technique that offers meaningful and prompt feedback which promotes learning. They also point to the notion that exit tickets offer non-judgemental assessment of students. This is interesting because in this regard exit tickets are low stakes assessments that do not have to be sources of anxiety for students. This can build students’ confidence as they see assessment as a standard part of any lesson rather than as a high stakes, stress-inducing, one chance pass or fail test.
Research into the benefits of using metacognitive strategies in the classroom by The Education Endowment Foundation (2018) found that when students are encouraged and have time to think about their own learning, the impact can be worth the equivalent of 7 months’ additional learning progress. The EEF found this is particularly relevant to socio-economically disadvantaged students and advises that metacognitive strategies are best taught within academic subjects so that they contribute to the learning process within specific contexts. Given that exit tickets can support students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning, they are an ideal approach to help develop metacognition and afford students the opportunity to make real learning progress and boost their resilience in the process.
Exit tickets can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. They can be used to assess students’ understanding of a lesson, to challenge students to apply what they have learned in the lesson to a question, to help teachers identify which students need additional help, and to provide feedback to students on their progress.
Some teachers use exit tickets daily, while others only once or twice a week. The frequency will depend on a variety of factors. Teachers might use exit tickets at the end of each lesson and use an online quiz at the end of a series of lessons or unit to assess a larger volume of content and/or skills that have been taught. Once exit tickets become embedded into the culture of the classroom, the process of low stakes formative assessment can become part of a learning and teaching routine. Students understand they will be expected to reflect on their learning at regular intervals and this routine serves to develop their metacognitive skills.
Using exit tickets to help students gain a sense of their level of understanding of content or skills is an effective retrieval practice strategy. Retrieval practice is a learning technique focused on repeatedly recalling learned material. Unlike summative assessments, exit tickets can offer more immediate data. This is helpful for learning because students are able to get feedback right away. Retrieval practice is based on cognitive science research, and can reveal gaps in students’ knowledge and understanding. It can highlight weak spots and over time, can improve the efficiency of learning.
Exit tickets can also be used to assess how well students are following along in class. If many students struggle with a particular concept, the teacher can go back and review that concept more thoroughly. If most students do well on the exit ticket, the teacher can move on to the next topic. A popular way to use exit tickets is the ‘3-2-1 exit ticket strategy’ which encourages students to reflect on and summarize their learning, while identifying areas that require more attention. This type of exit ticket would prompt students to reflect on three things they learned in the lesson, identify two things they liked about the lesson, or two interesting facts they learned, and one question they still have about the lesson. You can read more about the benefits of the 3-2-1 exit ticket strategy here.
Exit tickets can be informative for lesson planning, identifying whether further elaboration is necessary from the teacher as a result of misconceptions and errors. Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London, Professor Dylan Wiliam states that there are only two valid reasons for asking a question in class: to provide information to the teacher about what to do next, or to cause students to think. Exit tickets provide the ideal opportunity to meet both of William’s benchmarks. Moreover, during a podcast interview with Teacher magazine in 2019, Professor Wiliam highlighted a trap that teachers can fall into where they pose a question that is answered by confident and articulate students that readily volunteer and then move on. Some teachers may believe that the correct answer from sometimes just one student is sufficient evidence that learning needs have been met for all students. Professor Wiliam advises that the evidence base employed by teachers needs to be broader and timely. This is where exit tickets can provide a solution. Exit tickets have the capacity to amplify the voices of all students, thereby increasing participation opportunities for those less confident and articulate.
Student agency is critical to learning progress and mastery because it prioritizes students’ abilities to influence their own learning. Encouraging students to not only be active participants in but also drivers of their own learning can have a significant impact on student engagement according to Professional Development expert and National Urban Literacy Consultant, Kathryn Starke. Starke (2021) comments that when students understand their own personal learning goals, they have a target to which they can aspire and navigate. They develop independence and resilience as they venture on this journey and feel empowered. Exit tickets offer students the chance to self-analyze by rating their performance during a lesson and reflect on how they worked in a new group or what they thought about a new technique taught in a lesson.
When teachers offer feedback on student reflections and self analysis using exit tickets, students can enjoy a sense of motivation because they know they have been heard. Effective teachers help their students to develop the metacognitive strategies they need now and in the future by supporting their learning, emotional, social, and academic growth.
As exit tickets offer a quick way for teachers to get feedback from their students on how well they understand the material, teachers can use this information to determine which students need more help, and what type of help they need.
The exit ticket provides useful data to identify student strengths and weaknesses so that teachers can plan for the next lesson’s instruction. One group might get more direct coaching around their basic concept, while another group works independently or with just one on one help as needed.
Identifying students’ social and emotional learning can also be achieved using exit tickets. The teacher can ask students to reflect on how supported they feel, how well they are sleeping and coping with their workload. This helps to build relationships, metacognition, trust, and emotional intelligence. At the beginning of a school year, exit tickets could be used to get to know your students by finding out about their hobbies and strengths. This cultivates strong connections between teachers and their students and at the end of the school year, teachers could use exit tickets to encourage their students to reflect on their achievements, challenges, and what they have learned about themselves.
To create exit tickets, teachers can use a variety of methods, such as questioning students orally as they are leaving class or providing a short prompt that students must answer before leaving. Whatever method teachers choose, they need to be sure to make the tickets brief and easy to complete so that they don't add too much extra work for students.
As educators, it's important that we continually assess how well our students are understanding the lesson material they are experiencing. Simply asking "Do you understand?" can be ineffective, as a student may feel pressure to say yes even if they are still unclear on the concept. Exit tickets with specific questions about the lesson content can provide more informative feedback. These questions could ask students to explain or apply the concept, or even demonstrate their understanding through problem-solving. By using exit tickets, we can ensure we are properly measuring our students' comprehension and providing them with any necessary remediation or enrichment.
If you're new to using exit tickets in your classroom, here are a few tips:
Ziplet recommends structuring exit ticket questions around:
Let’s take a look at examples of each type of exit ticket question:
You can find more examples of exit ticket questions from Ziplet by clicking this link.
Exit tickets are a valuable tool for assessing student understanding and engagement. They can be used to improve instruction and provide feedback to students. There are different types of exit tickets, depending on what you want to measure. They can be used in any subject area and for any grade level. Teachers can create their own exit tickets or sign up for a free teacher account with Ziplet to help you create and share exit tickets. Ziplet makes the whole process simple. The responses are collated within Ziplet and you can analyse and track the responses. If you’re looking for a way to assess your students’ understanding, give exit tickets a try!
Download our free lesson plan today to help you get started with exit tickets in your lessons.
The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning
Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
The Education Endowment Foundation, ‘Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning’. (2018)
Kathyrn Starke, ‘Student Agency: Promoting Student Engagement’ (February 9 2021) TeachHub.com
Dylan Wiliam on effective learning in the classroom, Teacher (March 7 2019)
