Best Exit Ticket Tools for Teachers

Exit tickets are informal assessment tools teachers can use to assess students understanding at the end of a class. They can also be used for formative assessment purposes to help teachers design better instructional content based on students feedback. Exit tickets can take the form of a prompt or a question related to what have been taught in the lesson. 

Here are some examples of questions and prompts to use in your exit cards as featured in Brown University:

 “Name one important thing you learned in class today.
 What did you think was accomplished by the small group activity we did today?
Write/ask one question about today’s content—something that has left your
puzzled.
Today’s lesson had three objectives (These would have been shared at the
beginning of class and should still be available for referencing.), which of the
three do you think was most successfully reached?  Explain.  Or, which was not
attained?  Why do you think it was not?”

With the pervasive use of web technologies the pen-and-paper version of exit ticket is taking a backseat. There are now several web tools and apps that allow teachers to easily create and share various forms of exit tickets. The collection below features a sample of some of the best tools to use in this regard. 

1- Google Forms/ Docs

Google Forms is definitely one of simplest and easiest ways to create exit tickets. There is even a pre-made exit ticket template that you can edit and customize to your own teaching need. Alternatively, you can create a Google document with the questions and prompts you want students to work on and share it with them. Using the commenting feature, students add comments to the document and in this way you will be able to see what each student has contributed.

2- Polling tools 

You can also use a number of interesting polling tools to instantly assess students learning at the end of a class. Examples include:

A- Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a powerful web tool for creating and distributing polls. It offers five types of polls to choose from: multiple choice poll, free response poll, true or false poll, clickable images poll, and discourse poll. Your respondents can vote on your poll either through SMS or via the web using the generated link you will provide them.

Poll Everywhere also has a wonderful way of displaying the results of the poll. You can have the results displayed on a chart of bouncing bars.You can also present your polls as a seamless part of your PowerPoint or Keynote slideshow.

B- AnswerGarden

AnswerGarden is another great tool to use for collecting feedback from students. This is how it works: you type in your question in Create New AnswerGarden page. When you hit ‘submit’ you will be directed to your newly created AnswerGarden page. From there you can share your page with others or embed it in your class blog or website. Respondents will have to either enter their answers or choose from existing ones.

3- Student Response tools

Here are some of our favourite student response tools to use in class to do the same job a pen and paper exit slip can do:

A- Socrative

Socrative is another great tool for getting feedback from students. Teachers can use the different question types provided by Socrative to poll their students and garner their feedback in a variety of formats using both smartphones or computers.

B- iClicker

iClicker is a powerful formative assessment tool and intuitive student response system that allows for dynamic student-teacher interaction. Here is how it works: Instructors ask questions through any presentation application; students answer questions with a remote or smart device; instructors display results in real-time and record responses.

C- Plicker

Plickers lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. Just give each student a card (a "paper clicker"), and use your iPhone to scan them to do instant checks-for-understanding, exit tickets, and impromptu polls. Best of all, your data is automatically saved, student-by-student, at plickers.com.

D. Clicker Apps

Digital clickers are interactive learning technologies that provide teachers with an effective way to collect data about their teaching and engage students in learning.  Clickers  can be used for a various purposes. For instance, teachers can use them to conduct quick formative assessments using short quizzes, polls, exit tickets, surveys and more. Responses are collected and graded in real-time providing teachers with important analytic insights on students performance and progress.