Welcome back to our series on formative assessment strategies you can incorporate into your practice.

So far, we’ve talked about the Popsicle Stick, a simple technique that engages the entire classroom by giving all your students the opportunity to participate in class discussions. It also helps you elicit evidence of learning from everyone, not just the frequent hand raiser.

Let’s move on to our second technique: the Exit Ticket.

End with an Exit Ticket

The Exit Ticket is simply a question posed to all students prior to class ending. Students write their answer on a card or piece of paper and hand it in as they exit. This formative assessment technique engages all students and provides the all-important evidence of student learning for the teacher.

The exit ticket is a great in-class assessment tool that can also help plan instruction. It helps you gain understanding of who knows what and if certain subjects need additional instruction time, something that can be lost when one or two consistent hand raisers suggest learning proficiency for the entire classroom.

The Exit Ticket is simply a question posed to all students prior to class ending.

There are many ways to use exit tickets to inform your instruction for the next day. We’ve heard of teachers who group students in teams based on their answers. One of the students in each team should have a good understanding of the solution or answer. This empowers students to help each other and gives them varied perspectives on possible alternative answers. This self-regulation of learning can lead to student performance improvements, too.

Learn more

Get more formative assessment tips and tricks in our e-book “Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice.”