Formative assessment exit ticket

Check if students have understood the lesson
What are they:

Formative assessment exit tickets are an effective tool to check student understanding of your lesson. They are a fast and reliable method for finding out “who got it” and where additional help is required - either class-wide or individual students.

They are designed to take one or two key concepts taught in a lesson, and ask students a question that requires them to draw on the knowledge.  

With this data in hand, teachers can identify what may need to be covered again in the next class - or where they may need to follow-up with individuals ahead of that class. 

Formative assessment exit tickets are a great tool to inform teacher planning. And they also ensure you remain focused on how each student is progressing from class to class. This allows you to be more proactive in offering support, rather than waiting for tests or assessment late in the term. 

Benefits:
  • Fast and accurate method of assessing comprehension
  • Helps shape teaching plans going forward
  • Low stakes assessment that provides valuable data
  • Gives students an opportunity to demonstrate their learning and build confidence
Example questions:
What is the lightest element in the periodic table?
Multiple Choice
What is the longest river in North America?
Text Response
What is your favorite quote by Atticus Finch?
Text Response
In what year did World War Two begin?
Multiple Choice
Name three types of chemical reactions.
Text Response
Follow up activities:
  • Follow up with students who didn’t get the right answer
  • Identify groups within class who may need additional support
  • Revisit material when comprehension was low
  • Consider sharing the results at a class-wide level - students may take comfort in knowing that a majority of students didn’t get answer right
  • Reflect on what the data is telling you - and consider how you might incorporate this into future lesson plans
Pro tip:

Get in the habit of running a formative assessment exit ticket at the end of each lesson. 

This will ensure you have data following each class, and the anticipation of the activity will help to focus students on their learning throughout the lesson.

By running formative exit tickets regularly, you might notice that particular types of lessons work better than others, e.g. there might be higher recall when you teach one way versus another.

Consider running a lesson reflection exit ticket question at the same time, broadening the scope of data you gather from your students

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