A Ticket-In, provides students with the opportunity to reflect on what they have learned, think about questions they had and prepare to learn related material. When well designed a Ticket In is a great strategy for holding student accountable for their work outside of class. They know that in order to be able to fully participate in the upcoming class session they must think about specific ideas in the readings, videos, activities that were done outside of class meeting time. A Ticket In goes beyond a quiz, it should connect the work done outside of class with the learning that will take place during class time. It should provide students with the opportunity to reflect, question and organize their learning. If paired with the opportunity to have questions answered and muddy points clarified, a Ticket In will improve learning for students. In many setting a Ticket In or Admission Ticket is a quiz or a show of hands in response to questions. Using tools such as electronic polling allow us to easily record and respond to misconceptions or common questions immediately.
A Ticket-Out on the other hand provides students with the opportunity to organize and situate the information they have just learned during a class session. Often times in a University course students sit through a lecture and then leave. Instructors hope they the students leave the class and continue making sense of what they have learned. Unfortunately, many times students leave the classroom and immediately move on to the next activity. This creates a situation where students are not connecting the new learning to their existing knowledge. When this connection does not happen the new information is lost. A Ticket Out, can provide an organized time for the student to make meaning of the new information. Traditionally, Ticket Out, or Exit Tickets are paper and pencil tasks done at the end of class. With the many new online tools available to us we can move this activity to the online environment and investigate the best time to have students complete their tickets.
