Reinventing Exit Tickets with Plickers

“When teachers do formative assessment effectively, 

students learn at roughly double the rate than they do without it.”  

~ Dylan William

Assessments bridge instruction and learning, in that they provide opportunities to see whether or not students learned what was taught. Formative assessments happen during the instructional process and are used to provide each student with specifically what he/she needs to ensure the learning target is reached.

Exit Tickets are one type of formative assessment and serve as a great way to end a class. Exit Tickets should require students to demonstrate their mastery of the lesson’s learning target.  The teacher is then able to use information collected from the Exit Tickets to guide their next lesson and appropriately differentiate his/her instruction based on what students do or do not know.

Knowing that Exit Tickets are a great way to formatively assess my students, let’s use instructional technology to reinvent this process. Let’s talk Plickers!

Sample Plicker

Plickers are simple to use, require very little set up, and allow every student to participate – without the use of individual devices.  Plickers are unique designs (which must be printed) that when turned in a particular direction, represent a specific answer (ex: A-B-C-D, True/False). The students hold their Plickers in front of them while the teacher uses his/her smart phone to capture the results (using the Plickers app).  The app then provides detailed information regarding individual responses and whole group data.  Visit plickers.com for access this amazing, free resource!

The immediate feedback that Plickers provides allows the teacher to make adjustments to his/her instructional plan in order to facilitate increased learning.

Plickers allow us to reinvent the Exit Ticket and provide us with the formative data we need to differentiate our instruction; and that’s another Pint-Sized PD!