Overview
At the end of each lesson, give students the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the key objectives of the lesson through a simple exit ticket. Before the next lesson, review the exit tickets to check for common misconceptions. If misconceptions arise, use the first few minutes of the next lesson to address them before moving on to the next topic.
Through this activity you will be able to:
- Assess student understanding in an ongoing and timely manner, familiarizing yourself with their strengths and weaknesses.
- Quickly address misconceptions in a productive way, allowing students to correct their work and see progress.
- Provide students with suggestions to improve their work through re-teaching.
- Incorporate multiple strategies or approaches to support students.
- Promote the learning journey, rather than just getting the correct answer.
Conducting the Practice
At the end of every class where you introduce new material, reserve 5 minutes for students to demonstrate their understanding on a few objective-based questions as an exit ticket.
Review the results before the next class and take note of patterns or themes in students' understanding as well as in the misconceptions they have about the lesson.
Open the next lesson with a "do now" or short activity that addresses common misconceptions. Tell students that you are doing this activity to correct misconceptions from the prior day's lesson. This demonstrates to students that their work informs your instruction, and that learning involves cycles of learning and assessment.
This practice was adapted from the Learning Goals Guide developed by the Learning and Development Group at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research in partnership with PERTS.