What’s the secret to success on Ziplet? 

We recently completed the 4 Week Exit Ticket Challenge and asked the winners to share their tips and tricks with us. 

Here we share tips from Donna Blakeney, who collected over 1,700 responses from her students in 4 weeks. 

Here’s how she did it.

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How long have you been teaching?

I have been teaching at the high school level for 24 years. I also have been teaching at the college level for 11 years and the university level for 5 years.

What subjects do you teach?

Physics, Chemistry and Marine Biology.

What do you use Ziplet for?

I use Ziplet for my bell work so students can review what we did yesterday or start their brain waking up to start the lesson. 

I am starting to develop it for ticket-out-the-door to see what students have learned.

What do you like about Ziplet?

The ease for all users (teachers and students). I show my students once and now just say… Complete your Ziplet. I can grade the bellwork very quickly and provide feedback to my students who still need additional help understanding the concepts.

I can put questions in for the entire week at the beginning of the week then not worry about it. This way students have bell work even if there is a sub.

The students can rate themselves on how they feel about the concepts before they answer it. When they get the feedback many times they are surprised they were correct.

What is your routine with Ziplet?

I use it at the start of each class period each day. 

What are your tips for other teachers new to Ziplet?

Start out slow and work with only one class period. Get the hang of it and then build from there. If you make a mistake - laugh it off, correct things, and move on.

I print out a roster and write down a score of 0-10 on how the student answered the question (if the student is absent I write A). At the end of the month the lowest score is dropped (the A’s do not count) and the rest are averaged. That averaged score is entered into the grade book. This makes grading much quicker. 

Enter and schedule the week’s bell work on Monday morning (or over the weekend if you do work on the weekend). This way you do not need to worry about it each morning.