Keep the exit ticket to one question
Exit tickets die of ambition. One well-chosen question, ninety seconds, and you know exactly what tomorrow needs to fix.
Oct 21, 2026 · 1 min read
Exit tickets fail when they grow: three questions plus a reflection plus a smiley-face scale, started as the bell rings and half finished. The tool works when it is small. Angelo and Cross (1993) built a whole library of classroom assessment techniques around the same insight: a tiny, focused probe answered by everyone tells you more than a long one answered badly. Write one question that targets today's objective and takes ninety seconds, and every ticket becomes readable tonight.
In practice
- Ask a doing question, not a feeling question: 'solve this' or 'explain why this step is wrong', never 'how confident do you feel?'
- Design it so wrong answers are informative: a question everyone gets right, or wrong for ten different reasons, tells you nothing usable.
- Write the question when you plan the lesson, not at 2:55. It is the objective restated as a task.
- Read the stack the same day, and let tomorrow's starter respond directly to whatever the tickets reveal.
Quick takeaway: one question, ninety seconds, read tonight.