Written by Dr Craig Hansen, New Zealand’s leading AI educator, bicultural digital specialist, and founder of the Summit Institute.
More than 1,000 schools across New Zealand trust Craig and the Summit Institute to navigate the complexities of generative AI strategy, policy, and whole-school roadmaps.
I was recently chatting with my friend Milo from Notion for Teachers. We were discussing exit tickets and what they actually do. Here’s a summary of what we talked about.
Think about the last time you checked your phone’s weather app before heading out the door. One glance tells you whether to grab a jacket, and you adjust on the spot.
A good exit ticket works the same way for your classroom: a quick check before tomorrow’s plan, not after the unit’s already over.
Done right, it takes five minutes and tells you exactly who needs more support and who’s ready to move on.
This guide covers what exit tickets actually do, how to write a prompt worth answering, and how to run them without losing a minute of teaching time.
What Exit Tickets Actually Do
An exit ticket is a quick end-of-lesson check: one focused prompt, answered before students head out the door.
It’s a form of formative assessment, information gathered while you’re still teaching and used to adjust what happens next rather than to grade what already happened.
As Edutopia notes, teachers typically use exit tickets to gauge what students understood from the day’s lesson, and that’s exactly the gap you need to spot before it becomes tomorrow’s problem.
More than a quick quiz
Unlike a test, an exit ticket isn’t measuring what students got right for a grade. It’s feedback for you, not a mark for them: a signal about what to teach next, not a score for the gradebook.
That’s the same distinction the Council of Chief State School Officers draws when it defines formative assessment as a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement.
That feedback loop isn’t a nice-to-have. According to research compiled by John Hattie, feedback carries one of the largest measured effects on student achievement, well inside what he calls the “zone of desired effects.”
An exit ticket is one of the simplest ways to generate that feedback in the last two minutes of class.
Catching misunderstanding before it sticks
A two-minute check tells you who needs reteaching before the next lesson builds on shaky ground.
Consider a middle school math teacher closing out a fractions lesson with one steal-worthy prompt: “Write one thing that made sense today and one thing that’s still confusing.” Reading twenty of those takes less time than grading a quiz, and it tells you exactly who to pull aside first.
Exit tickets also push students to reflect on their own learning, not just yours.
Research on exit tickets and learning journals shows that brief prompts like this one encourage students to recall key ideas and self-evaluate what they understood or found challenging, building the kind of self-awareness that helps them spot their own gaps going forward.
Writing a Prompt Worth Answering
A good exit ticket lives or dies on its question. Ask for too much and you’ll get a pile of vague, half-finished answers that tell you nothing about what to teach tomorrow.
Keep it to one clear question
Tie every prompt directly to today’s learning objective: vague prompts give vague answers, and you’re left guessing what a shrug on paper actually means. Ask for one specific thing, not a summary of the whole lesson.
A prompt like “Solve this problem and explain your first step” targets a skill you can actually assess in seconds.
Compare that to a double-barrelled question that mixes two concepts into one answer: you won’t know which part a student is struggling with, the concept or the mechanics.
Robert Marzano, classroom researcher and education author, recently wrote in depth about this formative assessment: A Favorite Formative Assessment: The Exit Slip, recommending you state the objective, give a focused prompt, then actually use what comes back.
That last step is the one busy teachers skip, and it’s the one that matters most.
Prompt templates you can reuse
You don’t need a fresh question every day. Rotate a small set:
- A problem to solve
- A concept to explain in a sentence or two
- A self-rating with a reason (“I’m confident because…” or “I’m still stuck because…”)
A ready-to-steal one for tomorrow: “Write one thing you now understand and one question you still have about today’s topic.” It works across grade levels and subjects, and it surfaces confusion you’d otherwise miss.
Once a prompt earns its keep, save it. Building a small library, even something as simple as Notion templates for teachers, means planning stays fast and you’re never scrambling for a question five minutes before the bell.
Running Them Without Losing Time
An exit ticket that eats fifteen minutes of your prep time isn’t sustainable, no matter how useful the data turns out to be.
The whole point is to keep it short enough to run every day, and built into your lesson plan rather than tacked onto it after the bell rings.
Low-prep formats that work
You don’t need fancy tools to make this work:
- Index cards and sticky notes: No tech required, and they’re ready to hand out in seconds. A prompt as simple as “What’s one thing that’s still fuzzy about today’s lesson?” works for almost any grade level, and it’s ready for you to steal right now.
- Digital forms: If you’re teaching several sections back to back, a quick form auto-sorts responses for you, which saves real review time when you’re facing a much bigger stack of answers than usual.
Pick whichever format matches your classroom: paper slips for younger students, a digital form when you’d rather the sorting get done for you.
According to Columbia’s Center for the Professional Education of Teachers, an effective exit ticket takes students about five minutes to complete, and reading them shouldn’t take much longer than that.
That’s what keeps it sustainable as a daily habit instead of a once-a-month event.
Turning answers into tomorrow’s plan
Once the tickets are in hand, sort fast into three piles: (1) got it, (2) almost, and (3) lost.
Start with the lost pile first: that’s where tomorrow’s reteach or small group lives, before you even think about moving on.
Those patterns belong in your plan for the next class, not in a drawer. A lesson planning tool makes it easy to fold what you learned today straight into tomorrow’s warm-up or grouping, so the five minutes you spent actually changes what happens next.
Common Questions About Exit Tickets
A few questions come up again and again once teachers start using exit tickets. Here are straight answers.
Should I grade exit tickets?
No. Grading turns an honest check for understanding into a performance students dress up to please you, which defeats the whole point. Instead of marks, track completion or jot quick notes on the patterns you see: who’s stuck, who’s ready to move on, who needs a small group tomorrow.
How often should I use them?
Daily use is realistic, since a good exit ticket takes students two or three minutes to answer and you only a few more to skim. Lean on them hardest when you’re introducing something new or tricky, like negative numbers or persuasive writing, where a quick check tells you whether to move on or reteach.
What if students give useless answers?
Vague prompts get vague answers. Tighten the question so it targets one specific skill instead of the whole lesson. Instead of “What did you learn today?” try something like: “Write one sentence explaining why 3/4 is bigger than 2/4, using the word ‘denominator.'” Model a strong sample answer once, out loud, so students know exactly what a real response looks like, and the guesswork disappears fast.
Exit tickets aren’t about collecting paper. They’re about catching a misunderstanding before it hardens into a test grade. A prompt as simple as “What’s one thing that’s still confusing about today’s lesson?” can reshape how you open class tomorrow.
The habit only pays off if you actually read the responses and let them nudge your plan. Start small, stay consistent, and let five minutes of feedback do the heavy lifting your grading pile can’t.
References
- The use of exit tickets and learning journals in promoting reflection in young EFL learners — doi.org (2025)
- Exit Tickets as Formative Assessments — cpet.tc.columbia.edu
- Revising the Definition of Formative Assessment — famemichigan.org
- Hattie effect size list — visible-learning.org
- Gaining Understanding of What Your Students Know — edutopia.org
- A Favorite Formative Assessment: The Exit Slip — edutopia.org
👋 Get in touch with Milo:
Milo, Founder
Notion4Teachers
ESL Content Coordinator & Notion Ambassador
