Technique 20: Exit Ticket
"End your lesson with a single question or maybe a short sequence of problems to solve at the close of class. When you collect this from students before the leave and cull the data."
-Doug Lemov (p106) Teach Like a Champion
1) What is this strategy?
The concept of an exit ticket isn’t really hard to grasp yet it is a fairly simple strategy that shows whether the student(s) have understood what was being taught in the course on that particular day. An exit ticket should be a concise assignment consisting of one to three questions that focuses on a key point from the lesson taught that day in class before leaving the class. The purpose of having an exit ticket is for the teacher to learn how the students are doing as a whole in order to get some type of collectible data. Asking about percentages, how many got the questions right verses wrong. By having this set of data, you will be able to determine whether you need to reteach the lesson or whether the students grasp the lesson well and can move on to the next lesson. By using this as a way to get out of the door it can establish a better connection with the students each individually by saying “good-bye” “have a good day”, and so forth. By telling the students they will have an exit ticket will also help keep the students on track and driven to want to get them to answer correctly to get out of class. This strategy not only can help out the students but can also help out the teacher. The best thing an exit ticket will show the teacher will show you how well you really taught the lesson. By having the exit ticket on paper the teacher will be able to see mistakes the student may be making or may be continuing to make throughout the chapter or lesson; you’ll also be able to construct you next lesson plan based off the information you collected to be more effective in their learning.
2) Why will this strategy work?
I believe that the exit ticket strategy would work well because the teacher will be able to see how much and which information the student is and isn’t grasping. By doing so, this will show how well the students long term memory is working. The long term memory is consisting of two different types, implicit non-declarative (including the skills and emotional connections) and explicit declarative (including facts and memorized items). In order for the students to be able to store such information the teacher must present the information in such manner for a student to grasp. Another way to help the students out with trying to understand is to teach meaningful learning, a way of connecting life outside of school with content in school. It has been proven that while students are making connections with other aspects of life it allows students to comprehend and hold in more information. From a teacher who will continue to use the exit ticket strategies it will help better the student’s performance goals for in their classroom and in their future classes. After using the exit strategy every day in the classroom it can help the students learn how to improve their work ethic, behaviors, understanding of the knowledge and how to put it to use. The next day in class, after you have viewed all of the exit tickets, I would recommend going over the problems given. You can go over a wrong answer, the most common mistakes, and have to student’s show why it is wrong then go over one that is correct. This will not only show the students of what not to do but if they missed it of how to fix it.
3) How this will work in the classroom?
I would be teaching high school math; here I would use an example of an exit ticket strategy by giving a one or two question quizzes of what I taught that day before they left class. In order for the exit ticket to be effective, the teacher would need to be sure that it were to stay short, sweet, and to the point. The teacher needs to be sure that they have actually planned the exit ticket into the lesson plan for the day and already have the questions made up, printed out, or however they plan to collect them. The idea is for it to be quick, but for the teacher to see where each student is currently in the lesson. Are they lost? Are they still in the ballpark? Or are they right on target?
An example of an EXIT TICKET:
I am teaching my 10th graders in geometry, we just got done learning about the Pythagorean Theorem. In order for my students to leave my class to head to their next class they must answer two questions in regards to the Pythagorean Theorem. All of my students know at the end of class I hand out a half sheet of paper, for enough room to do work if needed, in order for them to exit the classroom. The students know in order to leave they must have some type of work on the sheet of paper in attempt to answer the problems. The students are not allowed to have notes or anything else but a paper pencil and calculator to do the problem. They are allowed to pack their bags prior to the exit ticket assignment and they are free to go when finished. Examples listed to the left:
