Exit tickets or slips are used by instructors to gage student understanding of topics covered in a class. At the end of the class period, students are given 2-3 minutes to answer specific prompts about the topics covered during the class. Students can write up their responses on an index card or piece of paper and then submit the exit slip when leaving the class. This strategy helps students organize and synthesize the ideas presented in the class while also providing the instructor with firsthand information on how students are understanding the information in the lesson (Akhtar and Saeed 2020). Thus, instructors can address misconceptions or incorrect thinking quickly (during the next class session) instead of learning what students do not know after the summative assessment.
Chat Waterfall is an adaptation of the ticket slip used in synchronous online courses. At the end of the video conference (e.g., Zoom) class session, students answer a specific prompt in the chat and then post their response to chat before leaving the meeting. This usually occurs as all student sharing at the same time creating a “waterfall” of responses in the chat. The instructor can look over the students’ responses before leaving the meeting or use the chat file that is produced by Zoom to evaluate responses after the meeting.
Akhtar, M., and M. Saeed (2020) Assessing the effects of agree/disagree circles, exit tickets, and Think-Pair-Share on Students’ academic achievement at undergraduate level. Bull Educ Research 42:81-96.