Lessons · Teaching · the exit ticket
The exit ticket, and what you do with it tonight
An exit ticket is one or two questions answered by everybody in the last three minutes, and its whole value is in what happens to the pile before tomorrow morning.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
A drawer of unread exit tickets is the most common object in a new teacher's room. The ticket costs three minutes of lesson. Sorting the pile costs six minutes of your evening, and it is the six minutes that changes tomorrow's starter.
How to think about it
Two questions, a first initial rather than a name, and a sort into three piles: got it, nearly, not yet. Count the piles. The nearly pile is tomorrow's starter and the not yet pile decides who sits near you.
Worked example
Ticket: 2 items, 3 min, everybodyShort enough to fit and long enough to tell you something.
Sort into 3 piles: got it 18, nearly 8, not yet 4Sorting, not marking. No red pen and nothing in a mark book.
18 + 8 + 4 = 30Everybody is accounted for. A pile that does not add up means somebody left without answering.
Tomorrow's starter comes from the nearly pileEight people, one question, four minutes. That is the whole plan.
Your turn
Thirty-one tickets come in: 22 say got it and 5 say nearly. Write the line that gives the not yet pile.
31 - 22 - 5 = tickets
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Marking the exit ticket. A mark takes an hour and tells you what a three-pile sort tells you in six minutes, and the sort is the one that is still usable at seven the next morning.