Entry Ticket/Exit Ticket
Table of Contents
Bloom's Level
Use
Setting
Activity
Technology
Related Strategies
Description
Entry and Exit Tickets are formative assessment and polling strategies used to gain specific information from students in a quick, concise, and low-stakes manner. Entry tickets are given at the beginning of class and exit tickets are given at the end of class. Although exit tickets are more commonly used, an entry ticket has the same purpose, both give teachers valuable information about students that they can use to inform instruction. Students often feel more comfortable sharing their responses because they are not graded and sometimes anonymous. Entry and exit tickets can be used in a variety of ways including for self-reflection, polling, collecting questions or comments from students, and assessing student understanding of the lesson.
When To Use It
As a learning strategy, use an entry or exit ticket when you want students to:
- share a brief response to a formative assessment question
- summarize or synthesize their learning in their own words
- reflect on what they learned
- activate prior knowledge
- respond to an opinion poll
- share questions or comments
As an instructional strategy, use an entry or exit ticket when you want to:
- informally assess students’ understanding of concepts or skills from the day’s lesson
- pre-assess students for an upcoming topic
- provide a safe and open forum for students to share questions or comments
- engage students in self-reflection
- obtain immediate and authentic feedback from students
- evaluate the effectiveness of your instruction
- learn more about your students so that you can adapt your instruction to meet their needs and desires
How To Use It
Advance Prep
Teachers can implement entry and exit tickets in a variety of ways, and you can plan for them in advance or incorporate them as needed.
Typically, exit tickets fall into three categories (Fisher & Frey, 2004):
- Prompts that document learning
- Prompts that emphasize the process of learning
- Prompts to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction
Implementation
1. Before the end (or beginning) of the lesson, present students with a brief question or prompt related to the lesson. The prompt may be shared verbally or in writing. Content-specific questions/tasks are also typical entry/exit tickets, for example, solving math problems.
Some examples include:
- Share one thing you learned today.
- What confused you about the lesson?
- What questions do you have about …?
- What did you think about…?
- What do you want to know about…?
- How could the lesson be improved…?
- Write for 3 minutes about …?
- Summarize the key points about … in 3 sentences or less.
- Rate how well you understand …
- What do you think will happen if…?
- What are you looking forward to learning about…?
2. Students may record their responses digitally or use paper and pencil. Index cards, sticky notes, or notebook paper are often used. Allow only a few minutes for students to complete their responses. Indicate whether they should put their names on the tickets.
Anonymous responses may be more comfortable for some students.
3. Collect the tickets and sort them into categories as appropriate (e.g. correct/incorrect, agree/disagree, question topics, types of errors or misconceptions, etc.)
4. Carefully review the information and use it to inform the next lesson so that you are able to address the needs of all students.
Pros
- Provides information that teachers can use to inform instruction, such as students’ interests, strengths, weaknesses, and misconceptions.
- Facilitates student reflection on their learning
- Supports critical thinking skills
- Promotes learner autonomy
- Can be completed in a short amount of time
- Provides an outlet for students who are reluctant to share responses in class
- Can be differentiated in a variety of ways to meet the needs of diverse learners
Cons
- When students respond to only one question, teachers may not have an adequate picture of their understanding
- Exit tickets do not provide information in time for teachers to adjust instruction during the lesson
- Students do not get immediate feedback on questions they have or incorrect responses
Culturally Responsive Application
Entry/Exit tickets provide a culturally responsive method for students to demonstrate their learning and share questions and comments in their own words. This strategy shows all students that they have a voice in their learning and their feedback is valued. It can be differentiated to meet the needs of diverse learners, and it provides information to help teachers get to know their students and reflect on their teaching practice. When teachers use the information from entry/exit tickets to adapt their lessons to address their students’ unique needs and desires, they enact culturally responsive teaching.
Emerging English Language Support
Students reflect on their daily independent reading, practice reading strategies or grammar lessons they have previously learned, this is a great place for journal questions. Use traditional, introspective questions or have students begin to keep a grammar/poetry/writing/etc. journal.
Students with Disabilities Support
Great tool to check for understanding and collect formative assessment data. Students rate their own performance, students opportunity to ask for the help they need.
Subjects
All
Why It Works
Exit ticket increase behavioral engagement and serve as a learning tool to increase score (REF52)