What is Formative Assessment?
Formative assessment allows educators to engage in their students’ learning process in order to assess whether they need to modify teaching strategies in order to ensure student learning and content attainment.
Exit [Physical] Card
The Notecard
At the completion of some/all classes or content areas, hand out one notecard to each student and ask them to write on one side something they learned and on the backside, one question they still have about the content.
Review each Notecard
Through your review, assess whether students accurately understood the content they needed to learn. If not, plan to reteach areas students are struggling within a different way (a project, handout, guided notes, etc.).
Appropriate Courses to Consider this Activity
This activity may be best used with small to medium size class loads. It may be cumbersome to review all the notecards of an extremely large class. Consider making the notecards anonymous because this is about the educator assessing their teaching of the students (formative), but not assessing the students’ knowledge (summative assessment).
Other Considerations & Applications
You can also use Entry Cards
Not necessary for this activity, but you can also have students complete a card at the beginning of class with a prompt from their readings.
Helpful Links
These educators discuss similar formative uses of exit cards:
- https://www.edutopia.org/blog/formative-assessment-exit-slip-rebecca-alber
- https://www.nwea.org/blog/2012/classroom-techniques-formative-assessment-idea-number-two/
Additional Ways to Use the Notecard
You are not limited to just having students write what they learned on one side of the card and questions they have on the other. You can also pose a question or a short writing prompt to the students at the end of the class and have the students write their answers on the notecard. Students turn in the card and then are allowed to leave the room. The cards are still used for formative, not summative assessment.
Feedback to Students
If you do have students put their names on the cards, you can write comments on the card or page numbers from the textbook to review in order to ensure they know where to correct inaccuracies or answers to their questions.
How to on D2L: The digital version
Survey Title: Exit Ticket: Quick Learning Check‑In
Description (optional): A brief check‑in to help me understand what you learned today and what still needs clarification. Your responses help shape our next class session
Recommended D2L Survey Settings
- Anonymous: ON
- This encourages honesty and reduces pressure.
- Availability: Set to open at the start of class and close shortly after class ends (e.g., 15–30 minutes).
- Attempts: Unlimited or 1 attempt — either works for exit tickets.
- Notifications: Enable instructor notifications if you want a daily digest of responses.
Survey Questions (Copy/Paste into D2L)
1. What is one thing you learned today?
Question Type: Written Response
Recommended Setting: Short answer (1–3 sentences)
2. What is one thing you’re still unsure about or want to revisit?
Question Type: Written Response
Recommended Setting: Short answer
3. How are you feeling as you leave class today? (Optional)
Question Type: Multiple Choice (One Answer)
Choices:
- 👍 Feeling good
- 🙂 Doing okay
- 😐 Neutral
- 😕 A bit confused
- 😟 Struggling today
- Prefer not to share
(Emojis display well in D2L and make the check‑in feel more human.)
Optional Add‑Ons
- Add a Progress Bar: Helps students see it’s quick (3 questions).
- Add a Thank‑You Message: (In the “Submission Message” field) Thanks for sharing your learning today. I’ll use your feedback to shape our next class session.