Iteratively-Designed Exit Tickets Enhances Student Learning

Abstract

What strategies can instructors use to simultaneously scaffold learning and promote reflective practice when assessing learning? This article describes one instructional team’s experience with designing and experimenting with Exit Ticket assignments to advance self-authorship and self-insight. Over several iterations of the same organizational behavior course, we varied the timing and sequencing of Exit Ticket assignments and removed instructor-led elements, like guided discussion prompts. We present findings across seven semesters that demonstrate improved student performance on Exit Ticket assignments and a Critical Self-Reflection essay. Our study demonstrates the impact of this small, yet powerful assessment technique in in-person and online instruction.

Keywords:

• Classroom assessment techniques
• formative assessments
• self-reflection

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the students at Carnegie Mellon University, Qatar for their willingness to participate in this study and Dr. Chad Hershock from the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University for his input during the conceptualization of the course assignments. We would also like to thank the Course Assistants who provided support in the implementation of Exit Ticket assignments across several semesters.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MR, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 The research was conducted as a Teaching-as-Research (TAR) project conducted in collaboration with the teaching and learning centre of the university. As a TAR project, the study needed to examine only existing aspect(s) of the course, and was covered under the IRB approved Exempt protocols for STUDY2016_00000148 at the university where these data were collected.