Electronic Exit Tickets

Many of us use exit tickets in our classes.  Exit tickets can give us valuable information about students understanding of the topic and how we can adjust our instruction to help students.  While paper based exit tickets are a simple and easy way, they can be time consuming to correct.  Electronic exit tickets can be a great alternative.  There are a number of different ways you can go about this and here are few of my favorites.



1. Google Forms
I would say that Google Forms is the simplest way to collect exit ticket data, but depending on how link will give you more information on creating a Google Form quiz.
you use it, it may not be any easier to grade than a paper exit ticket (although easier to collect).  If you construct a quiz that consists of multiple choice, checkbook ro drop-down questions Google Forms can automatically grade it.  This

2. Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere is a great tool if you are looking for something simple.  You can create multiple choice questions, true/false and short answer questions.  What's unique about Poll Everywhere that your students can answer via text if they don't have internet access.  You can even put your polls right into your slideshow so polling students is even easier.  If you decide to project the results you will see them update in real time.



3. Socrative
Socrative is fun way to collect feedback (as well as do a review).  They have four different options to choose from and one of them is called exit ticket.  For this purpose, I would suggest that one.  If you are looking to use it for other purposes, the space race is a fun one and quick questions are good when you want to do an assessment on the fly.
You can learn more about using Socrative by checking out this post and this post.


4. Plickers
If you love the idea of student response systems, but your students don't have individual devices to use plckers is for you! To use Plickers in your classroom you only need one device (apple or here.
android). Students each get a card (that you can print) that looks like a QR code. Depending on the orientation that students hold the card they are presenting a different answer. All it takes is a quick pan across the room with your device and you'll get all of the students responses.  Read my full blog post about plickers

This post is cross-posted on my technology blog The Tech Savvy Science Teacher

Free Online Lab Safety Course

If you are in a school like I was in you, you know that you are not being provided with the lab safety training that is required.  I did some research to find something and I came across the Flinn Online Laboratory Safety Course.  There are two courses: one for middle school and one for high school.  I took both of them (even though there is a lot of overlap) and learned so much!

You might be thinking, "I'm not a Chemistry teacher so this doesn't really apply to me!"  I have found that non-chemistry teachers almost need this more because they have less experience with chemicals and don't always deal with them safely when they do use them.

I'm sure there are no school schools who have perfect lab safety procedures and everyone can learn something from this course.  I also think it's a good refresher for teachers.  I don't recall being taught lab safety techniques when I was in college (either in my science class or my science methods classes).  Hopefully things have changed, but in case they haven't this is a must watch for all science teacher.

Comment below with what training you have had on lab safety.  I'm interested to hear what happen in other schools.