A good exit ticket tells you something you can use tomorrow. “Did you understand today’s lesson?” usually gets a yes, a no, or a shrug. Ask students to explain a step, correct a common mistake, or point to where they got stuck, and you have a better idea of what to revisit.
The exit ticket questions below work across subjects. You can use them after a maths lesson, a science investigation, a class discussion, or a rehearsal. Choose one prompt that fits the learning goal and give students two or three minutes to respond. I’d start with a simple planning question: What would I do differently tomorrow based on these answers?
1. Comprehension Exit Ticket Questions
Use these prompts to see what students can explain, demonstrate, or apply after the lesson. Replace phrases such as “today’s idea” with the specific concept or skill whenever you can.
- Explain today’s main idea in your own words.
- Give an example of what we learned today. Explain why it fits.
- Give an example that looks like it fits today’s idea at first but actually doesn’t. Explain the difference.
- What is one difference between the two ideas, methods, or examples we compared today?
- Choose one step from today’s work and explain why it matters.
- Use one piece of evidence from today’s lesson to support a claim.
- Show what you learned with a diagram, sketch, or model. Label the most important part.
- What pattern did you notice today? Give two examples that show it.
- Apply today’s strategy to this new example. Show your first step.
- Put the steps we practised in order. Explain why one step needs to come before another.
- What changed in the example we studied? Explain what caused the change.
- What would a classmate who missed the lesson need to know before attempting today’s task?
2. Reflection Exit Ticket Questions
These questions help students look back at how they worked. Ask for a specific moment, decision, or example so the answers give you more to work with.
- What did you try first today? How well did it work?
- When did something start to make sense? What helped?
- What did you change in your work as you went? Why?
- What did you notice today that you would have missed at the start of the lesson?
- Where did something you already knew help you with a new task?
- What did a classmate say or do that made you reconsider your approach?
- Which part of your work best shows your progress today? What can you point to as evidence?
- What question did you ask yourself that helped you move forward?
- What did you do when your first approach stalled?
- Where did you use feedback today? Describe the change you made.
- If you could restart one part of the task, what would you do differently?
- What connection did you make between today’s lesson and something you’ve learned elsewhere?
3. Misconception Exit Ticket Questions
These work best when you supply a specific claim, answer, or worked example. A plausible mistake gives students something concrete to examine and gives you a chance to see the reasoning behind their answers.
- A student says, “[insert a common misconception].” How would you respond?
- Look at this worked example. Where does the first mistake occur?
- Two students gave different answers. Which answer is better supported, and what makes you think so?
- Is this statement always true, sometimes true, or never true? Give an example to support your answer.
- What is wrong with the reasoning in this explanation? Rewrite the part that needs fixing.
- What assumption does this answer make? Is that assumption supported?
- A student used the same strategy on both examples. Why does it work in one case and fail in the other?
- Look at this claim. What evidence would you need before accepting it?
- Which of these examples belongs in a different category? What feature helped you decide?
- The final answer is correct. Does the reasoning hold up? Explain.
- Which two terms from today are easy to mix up? Use each in a different example to show the difference.
- What is one mistake someone might make on this task? Show how you would check for it.
Related: Classroom Essentials for Teachers
4. Confidence Exit Ticket Questions
A confidence rating is more informative when students tie it to a particular skill and explain what they can currently do. You can pair one of these prompts with a short comprehension question to compare students’ confidence with their work.
- How confident are you that you could do today’s task independently? What makes you say that?
- Which step could you explain to a classmate right now?
- Which part would you want to practise once more before doing it on your own?
- What could you do today without looking at the example?
- Choose one: I can do this independently, I can do this with a reminder, or I need another example. What led you to that choice?
- What are you confident about in your answer? What would you double-check?
- If the example changed tomorrow, which part of the task would you still feel ready to do?
- Where would you pause if you had to demonstrate today’s skill without help?
- What can you do now that you were unsure about at the beginning of class?
- How confident are you in your answer? Point to the evidence that supports it.
- Which task are you more ready for: explaining the idea, recognizing an example, or applying it to a new problem? Why?
- If you had to teach one part of today’s lesson, which part would you choose? Where would you want notes?
5. Next-Step Exit Ticket Questions
Use these when you want students to identify a manageable next move or tell you what kind of support would help.
- What is one question you want us to answer next class?
- Which step should we practise again together?
- What is one change you’ll make the next time you do this task?
- What kind of feedback would help you improve this piece of work?
- What is one thing you can check for yourself before asking for help?
- Write a practice question that would help you get better at today’s skill.
- What would you try first if you got stuck on a similar task tomorrow?
- What example would help you see the idea more clearly?
- Which tool, strategy, or resource will you use next time? Why?
- What is one small goal you can work on in the first five minutes of the next lesson?
- What would you like to investigate further? Where could you begin?
- If you had five more minutes today, what would you work on and why?
What Do Exit Tickets Look Like Across Subjects?
The most revealing exit tickets often name the exact thing students were learning. Here’s how that looks across different classes.
| Subject | Sample exit ticket |
|---|---|
| Maths | A student says 1/8 is greater than 1/6 because 8 is greater than 6. Use a sketch or a number line to explain how the fractions compare. |
| Science | Two identical ice cubes were placed on metal and wood. The one on metal melted faster. Which observation supports that claim, and how could we check that the result wasn’t a fluke? |
| English language arts | Choose one detail that suggests the narrator is nervous. Explain how it supports your inference. |
| Social studies | Which detail in today’s source helps you infer who the intended audience was? |
| World languages | Write one sentence about what you did yesterday. Underline the verb and explain why you chose that form. |
| Visual arts | Point to one place where you used contrast. Where do you expect the viewer’s eye to go first? |
| Music | Mark where you lost the beat during rehearsal. What will you listen for on the next run-through? |
| Physical education | What change did you make to your body position during the passing drill? What happened to your accuracy? |
| Computer science | Predict what this short program will display. Circle the line that helped you decide. |
What Should You Do With the Responses?
Read for patterns. If several students make the same mistake, use an anonymous example to start the next lesson and ask the class to find the first point where the reasoning goes off track. If a few students are stuck on one step, give them a brief check-in while the rest of the class moves on. If students explain the idea well but report low confidence, give them another short opportunity to use it independently and discuss what they did successfully.
You can collect answers on slips of paper, in notebooks, or through a short digital form. Students can also sketch or respond orally when writing speed would get in the way of showing what they know. My preference is to keep exit tickets low-stakes and show students how I used their answers. A simple “Several of you asked why this step works, so let’s start there” makes the connection between yesterday’s ticket and today’s lesson visible.
