Exit slips are flexible, low-stakes, high-impact formative assessments that provide meaningful feedback between students and teachers without relying too heavily on tests.
Why Use Exit Slips?
- Reduce testing fatigue: Frequent tests can exhaust students and consume valuable teaching time.
- Reveal student thinking: Brief written, oral, or visual responses offer immediate insight into understanding.
- Support growth: Used throughout a unit, exit slips encourage reflection, feedback, and progress monitoring.
- Work across subjects: Exit slips can be adapted to any grade level or discipline.
Beyond the Apple: How Exit Slips Work
Former junior high teacher Paul Healy shared this approach, which can be adapted for any grade level.
- Create a booklet: At the start of a unit, give students a booklet with four response options per page, based on daily or weekly readings, discussions, and course content.
- Offer choice: Assign a response option or let students choose the one that feels most meaningful.
- Collect responses: Gather booklets at the end of each lesson.
- Provide feedback: Offer written or oral feedback before the next lesson.
- Set high expectations: Establish clear expectations for depth of thought from the outset.
Sample Exit Slip Prompts
Students might respond to prompts such as:
- I’d like to learn more about…
- This discussion shifted my thinking from… to…
- This information connects with…
- My partner and I think…
- This sketch shows what I learned…
- I’m not sure about…
- This reminds me of a song, movie, or sport…
- This is important because…
- I’m still wondering about…
- The picture this creates in my mind is…
- These puzzle pieces show how this connects to prior learning…
Scoring and Feedback
Teacher feedback may be written or oral and should reflect the depth of student thinking.
- A– to A+: Perceptive, Critical thought: Deep connections, original insights, critical questions, and broad perspectives.
- B to B+: Thoughtful, Thorough, Engaged: Clear connections, sustained engagement, and solid understanding.
- B– or below | Resubmission Suggested: Surface-level understanding or limited engagement with the content or peers.
Using Exit Slips Mid-Class
- Quick (1–2 minutes) check-in before a break.
- Exit slips offer immediate insight into student thinking in concise written, oral, or visual form.
- Provides teacher with insight into student thinking throughout the lesson; allowing responsive adaptions to the lesson
