Teach like a champion 3.0: 63 techniques that put students on the path to college - Lemov Doug 2021

Technique 26: Exit ticket
Lesson structures

As the bell rings at the end of class and students gather their things, we often have an intuitive sense of how our lesson went, but without objective data, it can be hard to know for sure how student understanding has changed as the result of the hour spent together. In order for our students to make maximum progress, we need better information. In order to get a reliable snapshot of student thinking, I recommend ending your lesson with a short sequence of questions that reveals the extent to which students have mastered the central content of the day (as well as, perhaps even more important, who is still struggling and with what). When you collect this from students before they leave, and review the data, it's called an Exit Ticket. Use of Exit Tickets can establish a productive habit of student review (and retrieval practice) at the end of a lesson and also ensure that you end each session with information you can use to analyze your students' progress and inform coming lessons.

After reviewing the results of an Exit Ticket, you hope to know: How many of your students answered a basic question assessing the content correctly? How many could answer a more nuanced question? What mistake did those who got it wrong make? You can even reflect on whether your “gut” sense of how well the lesson went was correct, and why.

One caveat before sharing more specific guidance on Exit Tickets: one of the most common pitfalls of Exit Tickets is to equate performance with learning. You'll recall from the discussion of Retrieval Practice that once students have initially learned something, they quickly begin to forget it. As Harry Fletcher Wood puts it, “Student performance while being taught is a poor indicator of lasting learning.” Exit Tickets are designed to give you more immediate data on misconceptions students may be struggling with as they are in the process of learning, not to measure how well students have committed previously learned knowledge or skills to long-term memory. They provide you with an opportunity to intervene as close as possible to the point of misunderstanding, so students can spend their valuable time and cognitive space remembering correctly. But once you start to see mastery on Exit Tickets you have understanding, not learning. For that you'll need to make sure to return to concepts over time.

Characteristics of Effective Exit Tickets

Here are some general characteristics of effective Exit Tickets:

They're quick: Two or three questions is a good rule of thumb. It's not a unit quiz. You want to get a good idea of how your kids did on the core part of your objective and, given how busy you are, be able to review the data in a few minutes.

They're designed to yield data. Think about asking each question (or part of a question) to focus on one specific part of the lesson rather than asking several questions that summarize the whole lesson. That way, if students get it wrong, you'll know which part was the problem. Also remember to vary formats—one multiple choice and one open response, say. You need to know that students can answer both ways.

They make great Do Nows. After you have looked at the data, let your students do the same. When students struggle, start the next day's lesson by redoing questions or studying wrong answers from the Exit Ticket.

They're predictable. An effective Exit Ticket doesn't introduce new concepts or skills. It should reflect the work students did in the lesson. Honestly it's fine if a question in the Exit Ticket repeats or restates a key question from the lesson itself.

Variation: The Stamp

Exit Tickets are designed to be quick and data friendly. Occasionally, though, you may wish to substitute another form of daily assessment in their stead. These are called stamps. The name was coined by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, who uses it to refer to a student-initiated summary of key learning points. Sometimes a teacher will ask a student to “stamp the learning” during class … that is to recap the important points of a discussion, say. But a stamp can also be a written activity—an open-ended Exit Ticket if you will. A stamp is slightly longer than Exit Tickets and almost always open-ended. It asks a student to summarize their takeaways. In building our Reading Reconsidered Curriculum we found we used an Exit Ticket on the great majority of days, but occasionally we would use a stamp instead. They took twice as long but they asked students to complete a broader, more comprehensive reflection. The data isn't quite as crisp and there's more to grade. But it gives you the opportunity to assess more advanced and rigorous thinking.

For comparison, here are three examples of Exit Tickets we wrote in our curriculum units and one typical “stamp.”

Example 1: Romeo and Juliet

Exit Ticket

1. Which of the following lines hint at the dark and tragic mood underlying Act 1, scene 4? Circle all that apply:

1. “I have a soul of lead / So stakes me to the ground …”

2. “I am too sore enpierced with his shaft …”

3. “Borrow Cupid's wings / And soar with them above a common bound.”

4. “My mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars.”

2. Select one of the circled lines, and in 2—3 sentences, explain how it develops a tragic mood:

Example 2: The Giver

Exit Ticket

1. Name at least two rules that exist in the community, and list at least two things about the community that are still ambiguous.

2. In one carefully crafted sentence, describe the degree to which members of the community seem apprehensive or obedient. You can choose one or both words to use in your response.

Example 3: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Exit Ticket

1. Complete each of the following sentences:

·  The Logan family owns land because

·  The Logan family owns land, but

·  Since the Logan family owns land

STAMP: LORD OF THE FLIES

Stamp: This lesson is titled: “That's how you can feel in the forest.” Who says this and what does he mean by it? Explain why that might be, using one or two details from today's reading.

Exit Ticket Advice from Teachers

Because Exit Ticket is one of the most commonly used and deeply trusted techniques in the book, I recently asked some teachers for their advice, and the results were pretty amazing. The insights came from the United States and the United Kingdom; they came from district school teachers, charter school teachers, and private school teachers. They came from teachers whose lessons I'd watched and admired, and teachers I'd never met. Here are a few gems.

Review Data Efficiently

One of the key themes was reviewing the data. Teachers advised looking at the data quickly and using a standard, low-transaction-cost way of processing to make it easy to take action. Leanne Riordan of Baltimore suggests looking at the Exit Tickets as soon as you can, right after the lesson if possible, and sorting them into three piles—Yes, Some, and No—based on the responses. After looking for reasons that students missed a concept entirely or grasped it partially, make quick notes right on the Exit Ticket. You can then use these piles to differentiate small groups the next day or to create a Do Now for the whole class if needed.

As an added tip, keep the No pile on the top as a reminder to check in with those students more frequently the next day. Alternately, tracking the number of students who get a certain score and adding notes to sum up misconceptions can help you stay accountable for grading nightly and give you a glimpse of how the lesson went.

Hand in hand with reviewing results quickly is creating a format that makes it super easy to do. For example, Janice Smith, from Durham, North Carolina, uses sticky notes, having students write their name on the front and their answer on the back. On the way out of the classroom, students stick the notes to the door, allowing Janice to quickly flip through them between classes and easily enter data in a spreadsheet later in the day. Regardless of whether you use handouts or even just have students write their answers on something as simple as a sticky note, ensuring consistent placement (a variety of Standardize the Format) makes reviewing answers far more efficient.

Have a Clear Purpose

Another common theme surrounds the purpose of Exit Tickets. One teacher in the United Kingdom talked about the importance of having a “clear sense of why you are using Exit Tickets.” If Exit Tickets show poor understanding across the class, then reteach; if Exit Tickets show just a few students to be struggling, then that small group may need a separate intervention; if the class kind of gets it, but is a bit unsure, then focus on areas of uncertainty for homework or during regular ten-minute slots for a few weeks; if Exit Tickets reveal the class to be very secure about a certain topic, then schedule a refresher in a week or two, but don't give this topic too much time, as there will be better things to use it for. In short, responding to Exit Tickets is often about being entrepreneurial with time.

Alexa Miller, a fourth-grade teacher in New York, addressed that theme as well, saying that she leaves Exit Tickets in student mailboxes to be corrected the next morning. This works well for elementary teachers, because students can fix mistakes during breakfast while the teacher Circulates to assist and recheck. This extra step in the screening process for remediation helps keep groups small.

There was a great piece of planning advice from a champion teacher whose lessons I'd watched multiple times. Heather Snodgrass of Nashville advised: “[I] write the Exit Ticket first, before planning out any other parts of the lesson. This helps me focus in on the key points that are essential to conveying the most important content, and occasionally helps me refine the objective so I'm honing in on a manageable and appropriately rigorous skill.” She added, “I also like having a consistent routine for students who frequently finish their Exit Tickets very quickly. One I've used for math is having students write their own problems about the skill we've learned that day. Students also like this if they get an opportunity to solve each other's problems.”