The Benefits of Digital Exit Tickets for Teachers

Teachers and educators always seek better ways to gather actionable student feedback. In modern education, exit tickets are a simple, economical, and practical formative assessment method. They help teachers gauge the student’s understanding and enable them to plan the next lesson according to that. This allows students to feel heard and supported in their learning journey.

This article will discuss exit tickets, their benefits, and some new-age ideas you can implement in your classroom.

What are Exit Tickets?

Exit tickets are short tasks, assignments, or assessments that students must complete before they leave the classroom. Usually, they are tests with two to five questions and don’t take more than a few minutes to complete. They can be used to test how much the students have understood at the end of a class or to gather feedback about their learning experience. They equip teachers with timely insights about the class and their preferred instruction methods.

Benefits of Exit Tickets

Exit tickets are simple to implement and offer vital insights to the teachers for their instruction strategy in the next class. Here is a look at some of the significant benefits of exit tickets –

1. Gauge Student Understanding – Teachers can use exit tickets to check how much students have understood in the class. At the end of the class, students can be given a small task or a fundamental question about the lesson they learned in that lecture. Teachers can quickly check the exit tickets to determine which students understood the concept and those who could not grasp the lesson.
2. Assessment on the Fly – Exit tickets are like miniature formative assessments for the class. They highlight the level of student comprehension by giving a summative insight into their learning. Such assessments on the fly can be useful for teachers to determine the path ahead, as they can identify the level of understanding the students hold.
3. Simpler Assessment – Exit tickets are like assessments but delivered in a low-pressure format. Exit tickets must be completed within the classroom and immediately after the lesson, which enables students to be comfortable with the assessment. It is a simpler, quicker, and stress-free form of evaluation for both teachers and students.
4. Develop Analysis & Critical Thinking Skills – Exit tickets compel students to think critically about what they learn in the class. When students know they must take a formative assessment at the end of the lecture, they engage better with the class content. It enables them to develop analytical and critical thinking skills.
5. Improved Learning – Exit tickets can help teachers improve the learning experience for their students. Repeating information within the first few hours of learning can improve recall and reduce memory loss.
6. Student Motivation – Exit tickets are not just a way of telling the teachers what the students learned but also a great way to express any doubts or problems students face in their learning journey. Students feel motivated and confident when teachers address the concerns highlighted through exit tickets. Exit tickets are also helpful for shy or quiet students to share their views discreetly.
7. Improved Communication – Teachers need new ways to promote communication in the classroom. Exit tickets enable effective communication wherein teachers can understand a student’s feelings and progress at a glance.
8. Hold Students Accountable – Students work harder to understand the concepts and pay better attention when they know they will receive an assessment at the end of the class.
9. Keep Students Engaged – When teachers use innovative ideas to create engaging activities for exit tickets, it improves student engagement and makes the class more interactive.
10. Importance of the Main Concept – Exit tickets help highlight the lesson’s main point. Students may learn many concepts in a lecture; some may not be as important as others. Including the main idea in the exit ticket helps highlight and reiterate it for the students.
11. Immediate Feedback – Teachers can comprehend the student’s understanding of a topic and the quality of their learning experience to evaluate the effectiveness of their instructional methods. Teachers will get immediate feedback if a topic needs to be retaught differently or revised before proceeding to the next topic.
12. Monitor Progress – Exit tickets are an excellent way to monitor your students’ progress and track their learning journey. Routine assessments in the form of exit tickets help teachers identify gaps in learning and address them on time.

Exit Ticket Ideas

Engaging a class full of students with diverse learning styles is a challenging task. However, you can use exit tickets to gauge students’ understanding of the material through real-time feedback. Here is a list of engaging exit ticket ideas you can implement in your classroom.

1. Make Them the Teacher – Give students a chance to step into your shoes and ask what concepts they would emphasise if they were the teacher. It helps students think critically about the lesson and reiterates the main points.
2. Use Emojis – Middle and high school students express themselves online. Use these emojis to get feedback on the lesson.
3. Make Videos – Students love making reels and short videos for social media. Ask them to make a video for your exit ticket. You can ask them to summarise the lesson or share feedback for the learning experience in this video.
4. Sticky Notes – Print your exit tickets on sticky notes and distribute them to the students. They can paste them on a graph that measures the level of understanding.
5. Seek Honest Feedback – Draft your questions to elicit honest feedback from students. When teachers ask for honest feedback, students feel supported and encouraged.
6. Snapshot Reflections – If your students love art, use it as an exit ticket to understand their grasp of the lesson. Ask them to express what they learnt as pictures or art pieces.
7. Google Forms – Google Forms are an efficient way to conduct exit assessments for virtual classes. Google Forms will quickly analyse the responses and give you the necessary statistics.
8. 3-2-1 Assessment Tool – Use an exit ticket with the following prompts – write down 3 things you learned in today’s lesson, 2 questions about today’s material, and 1 thing you need help with in today’s lesson.
9. Brain Dump – Give students two or three minutes to write anything they can remember about the lesson. It enables students to think about the concepts and review them.
10. Use Prompts – Use creative prompts to tap into the expressive power of creative writing.
11. Take Time During Meals – Spark insightful conversations at the lunch table by giving your students a thought to ponder at lunch. It will help students quickly pivot into learning mode when they return to class.
12. Poll and Surveys – Turn your exit ticket into a dynamic experience through polls and surveys. It can offer valuable insights into student opinions and feedback.
13. Self-Reflection – Exit tickets can help students self-assess and reflect. Draft a thoughtful prompt that urges students to think about what they learned and how they want to shape their learning journey.
14. Traffic Light – Use a traffic light and ask students to indicate their feelings about the concepts they learned in class. If they are confident, they will indicate green; doubtful students can choose yellow, and students who cannot understand enough will pick red.
15. Peer Perspective Exchange – Encourage students to swap exit tickets and discuss their feedback on the class. Students who cannot grasp the concepts can receive help from their peers who better understand the lesson.
16. Creative Collage – Give your students a collaborative task to create a collage that expresses the concepts they have learned. It encourages students to work together and identify the key concepts while expressing them creatively.
17. Quick Quizzes – Bite-sized assessments in the form of a pop quiz can be an effective recap tool for the students to remember the key concepts covered in a lesson. You can also use this exit ticket form by turning it into a quest –each question offers points, and each answer forms a narrative.
18. Exit Journal – Students can maintain an exit ticket journal wherein they note down their key learning and feedback for every lesson. These journals are great for teachers to capture their students’ entire learning journey.
19. Then vs. Now – Give your students a view of their learning progress by drafting a then vs. now exit ticket format.
20. Mini Assessment – Make mini assessments at the end of the class. It helps students assess their understanding in a stress-free environment.
21. Gamification for Assessment – Make your assessments exciting by including gamification elements. Students will look forward to these mini-games and compare scores later.
22. Class Summary – Ask students to summarise their lesson in one sentence or paragraph. It will compel students to think about what they have learned and express it concisely.
23. Exit ticket Interviews – Exit ticket interviews are a great way to encourage short one-to-one interactions with your students. You can set the interview questions to ensure that you can gauge their understanding of the lesson.
24. Match with Teaching Philosophy – Draft exit ticket questions to match your teaching philosophy. It will enable students to reflect, observe, and explore their learning.
25. Update Ideas – Keep changing and updating your exit tickets to ensure your students think twice before answering the questions on their exit tickets. Repeating the exit ticket format for every lesson may result in similar responses for every lesson.
26. Analyse Responses – Exit tickets are useful only when the information gleaned from them is analysed, and those insights are used to improve pedagogy. Teachers should devote time to analysing the responses from the exit tickets and utilise the insights to enhance their instruction methods.

Exit tickets are a significant tactic in modern education that helps teachers accurately understand their students’ learning needs. It shows the progress and feedback of the students – to give educators actionable insights for the next lesson. The best way to use exit tickets is by partnering with EdTech experts to create an engaging and formative assessment experience for your students.

How Does Extramarks Help with Formative Assessment?

Extramarks is a new-age education technology partner that helps educators enhance their instructional approach by leveraging technology. Our Smart Class Solutions can help teachers draft exit tickets that are engaging, thorough, and formative. Our assessment centre can quickly create effective exit tickets without increasing the burden on teachers and automating the process.

Last Updated on May 13, 2024