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Strategy 1: Exit Ticket

An Exit Ticket is a strategy used at the end of class to get an accurate reading of what students have retained and what students are struggling with.  Exit Tickets are short yet helpful ways to collect data that can further assist both the students and teacher in a classroom.  Effective Exit Tickets have three main characteristics.  First, they are very short.  Because these assessments are meant to be given at the end of the class session, one to three questions will suffice.  Secondly, it is important that the Exit Ticket assesses one key component of the lesson.  By doing this, the Exit Ticket will give the teacher a clear representation of what part of the lesson the student has either retained or is struggling with.  Lastly, the Exit Ticket can be used in accordance with another strategy.  The results of the Exit Ticket can be used to formulate an activity for the following day that addresses the problems found in the Exit Ticket.  After examining Exit Tickets, teachers are able to assess which students got the question(s) wrong and can then examine what part of their lesson could have led to this misunderstanding.  So essentially, Exit Tickets are a way to gauge the level of understanding that students have about a particular topic.  Thus, they can assist in the future planning of teachers.

 

Exit Tickets, as mentioned above, are a way to gauge how clearly a student understands a certain topic.  With this knowledge, teachers are able to find out where a student's Zone of Proximal Development is.  The Zone of Proximal Development includes the things that students can do with help.  Teaching in this ZPD is vital.  So, by gauging where a student’s ZPD is, teachers can cater their lesson to maximize learning.  In addition, these Exit Tickets can help teachers pick out who the More Knowledgeable Others within a classroom are.  More Knowledge Others are students who understand content more deeply than their classmates.  When grouping students, teachers often place an MKO in each group to help aid in the scaffolding of other students.  So, Exit Tickets help teachers to identify these students and more effectively group them.  More effective Differentiated Instruction can also be an effect of Exit Tickets.  Exit Tickets help to identify how much students understand.  Therefore, teachers are able to differentiate their lessons in hopes of reaching each student on their respective level.  By identifying how much each student knows, the teacher is able to differentiate the lesson in order to meet their needs.

 

My goal is to teach 6th or 7th grade English/Language Arts.  One of the units that I will be expected to teach will be on the different parts of speech and how they are used in sentences.  After teaching this lesson, I will present the students with an Exit Ticket that looks as follows: 

 

Name: _______________                                                                               Date:________________

 

Identify the parts of speech of each of the following words, and then use each word in a sentence to show your understanding.

 

  • Colorful

  • Library

  • Jump

 

  

 

 

Each of the words presented are a different part of speech.  Therefore, I will be able to more clearly identify which part of speech is troubling students, if any.  Because I asked for not only the part of speech but also a sentence, I will be able to distinguish whether the student has a deep understanding of the word or if he or she is just guessing on the questions.  After looking at the Exit Tickets, I will assess what components of the lesson that a student understands.  For instance, if a student correctly identifies “colorful” as an adjective but writes a sentence such as “The boy did a colorful back-flip”, I can infer that the student understands how to identify different parts of speech, but it is clear that he or she is struggling with the actual application of the word.  In finding this out, I will formulate a lesson for the beginning of the class on the following day in order to address this issue.  For example, I will write five words on the board.  As a class, we will write a sentence that correctly uses each word.

 

 


 

 

 

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