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Exit tickets or Exit Slips are a simple, low-stress tool for conducting formative assessments with students.
Put simply, they help you understand what your students have understood from your lessons.
They work in a few ways:
Typically a teacher will provide a question at the end of class for students to respond to before leaving. Students respond on either a piece of paper or using a digital exit ticket tool.
Exit tickets should take no more than 5 minutes to complete, with between 1-3 questions. Using a mixture of response types, including both qualitative and quantitative content can give you a better understanding of the class as a whole and the challenges faced by individual students.
For example, you might ask:
“How well did you understand today’s lesson (Scale of 1 -7)”
Followed by:
“What is one thing you'd like me to explain more clearly?”
Where teachers use paper exit tickets, the questions are typically determined ahead of the class and printed onto individual pieces of paper, or shown on the board at the front of the class whilst students write on pieces of paper. At the end of the class, students will hand back the paper to the teacher.
Exit tickets provide a number of helpful benefits for teachers and students:
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Exit tickets have been found to improve behavior and academic achievement.
They enhance understanding, develop reflective skills, and inform teaching practices.
According to Bowling Green State University, exit tickets are most effective when they actively involve both teachers and students.
Motivation is imperative to learning. When we feel motivated, our engagement levels increase. We’re likely to put in a greater effort.
With exit tickets, students are motivated to take ownership of their own learning.
Leigh refers to the tool facilitating ‘rituals for thinking’: they offer a “physical space to digest ideas, to question, to ponder, to ruminate over what has been shared and discussed.”
Self-analysis is a critical skill for successful future learning.
According to Paz-Albo and Hervaz, exit tickets stimulate this process. They enable students to analyse and reflect on their efforts in their learning.
Students are better able to:
Researchers posit that reflection serves as a purpose for future learning. Using reflection, students know what worked and what didn’t. They can make meaningful changes in response to new learning.
The true power of exit tickets lies in their ability to shape your teaching.
They’re a meaningful form of formative assessment.
They support teachers in devising individual learning plans and goals.
Marzano explains tangible ways in which to differentiate instruction using exit tickets:
“If the majority of the class identified a specific topic as an area of confusion, the teacher might reteach that content the following day. If different students identified different topics, the teacher might offer small-group instruction that targets specific concepts... to help clear up students' confusions. Students who understood the content of the lesson well might be assigned to each group as topic-specific experts.”
This tool informs the types of practice opportunities and activities that’ll promote deeper understanding of a topic. For instance, if students identify visual learning tools as effective, you’ll know to incorporate these into teaching.
Using exit tickets with your students is easy. Having a clear plan will help you get the most from the process.
Think about the reason your using exit tickets. The most common use is for formative assessment based on the lesson content.
You might also use the exit ticket format at the start of class as a "bell ringer", as a conversation starter mid-lesson, or for SEL and well being checks.
Identify some key questions based on your objective. This might include questions about the lesson content, or some of our suggested questions below.
If you haven't already used exit tickets with your students, make sure you explain how you will be using them and why. This helps them understand their importance.
You should also consider the mechanism used for collecting exit tickets. Using a tool like Ziplet makes it easy to create, share, collect and analyse exit tickets. It also allows a variety of formats including scale, multiple choice and emoji responses.
Using paper exit tickets and collecting them on the way out the door is a simple but potentially time consuming alternative.
Exit tickets are only helpful when you can gather meaningful insights from them. Set aside some time to review responses. Grouping students according to their answers can make it easier to follow up.
In your Ziplet account all responses are instantly visualised, and responses can be filtered, helping you identify common themes in students responses and follow up with those who need it.
Following up with students lets them know their responses are important.
It also allows you to provide differentiated instruction or support to students who need it most.
Take the time to follow up with students either individually or as a class (where appropriate).
Ziplet let's you reply to students directly or as a group, making it easy to follow up on incorrect answers or pieces of feedback.
Here are some of the most popular questions, taken from articles on Ziplet.com.
The following questions address student understanding of the lesson content and encourage them to reflect on their learning.
These questions address the broader approach to learning and might typically be used once per term to shift teaching approach per course or learning module.
Answer a Ziplet exit ticket and let us know what you think of this guide.
Any questions, suggestions or ideas are welcome.
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