Exit Tickets: Leave on a Metacognitively-high Note


Small pile of tickets



An exit ticket is a strategy for effectively and efficiently wrapping up the day’s lesson. They can be a review of the lesson material, comprehension checks, and a chance to reflect and make connections to their own professional contexts. Exit tickets have many research-backed benefits including:

  • the opportunity to codify and retain what was just learned
  • a designated time for students to apply what they learned to their lives or careers
  • a way to identify aspects of the lesson that did not connect with students
Exit tickets promote metacognition, feedback, and social learning, all principles of the “Think” dimension of 2U’s Learning Experience Framework (Koblic, 2020). When students are asked to think about their thinking in exit tickets, they are able to identify their successes, challenges, and progress, plus plan for doing things differently, either through personal reflection or by sharing in pairs. Faculty are also able to key in on information that needs to be clarified and also see progress. Let’s be honest, more often than not, there is more to cover in any given class than there is time. However, even by cutting the “information dump” five minutes early and dedicating that time to an exit ticket, you are giving your students invaluable time to “reflect on what they have learned” and to “begin to synthesize and integrate the information gained during a class period” (The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning).  

Exit tickets can be done in a number of ways, and there really is no wrong way to implement them. One of the easiest, built-in ways to conduct an exit ticket is through the Zoom Chat feature. Students can respond to a prompt either through a private or public chat. An added bonus for faculty is that the chat will save automatically at the end of your class. If you would prefer to check your students’ responses later, you can pull that file from your computer in Documents > Zoom > [class date and time].

Strategy 1: Private Chat Difficulties

Set the precedent that at the end of every class, you expect students to spend some part of the last five minutes using the chat feature to send you a private message detailing the most difficult element of the week’s subject matter. This allows you to gauge where your students’ confusion still lies, week after week. You can then take this information and clarify using the Wall or the beginning of the next class, ensuring that your students are on the same page moving forward.

Strategy 2: Plan for Practice

In a smaller class where your students are heavily involved in their field placements, have your students each share out verbally, how they will incorporate the new practice they just learned into their field placement in the upcoming week. This allows your students to envision how this new practice might look, and gives them the opportunity to be self-accountable.  If you want to further the learning, ask your students at the beginning of the next class how the practice went.

Strategy 3: Annotate the “Aha!” Moment

You forgot to plan a specific exit ticket for this week.  Share your Whiteboard and have your students annotate the details of their biggest “Aha!” Moment of the week’s material.  This prompts your students to mentally review the week’s material, searching for the element that stuck out the most to them. It also prompts their brains to organize the information, prioritizing that which is the most important. Additionally, by posting the information onto the Whiteboard for everyone to read, students can see others’ responses, triggering further thought on the subject.  

See how easy exit tickets can be?


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