Monday, October 16, 2017

Bell Ringers and Tickets out the Door

Throughout my year in teachers college my advisor and biology teachable professor always told me the importance of bell ringers and tickets out the door to start the lesson off right and end it on a good note as well.

Ticket out the doors and other formative assessments at the end of the period were always my strong point.  Even though the ones I did were always related to science I can still see this being a helpful tool for math students.

With ticket out the doors, students can answer a certain question or two that relates to the lesson they did that day.  When they hand that in as they leave it allows the teacher to see how they understood the lesson, where they went wrong, and provide formative feedback.  When students receive this formative feedback on where they went right and wrong they will be able to fix their mistakes before a quiz or type of assessment that gave marks.  I also loved doing Kahoots at the end of a group of lessons that were all related.  Students love doing Kahoots as they are fun game like times and it also allows them to see right away if they know the answer or if they don't.  These are all super fun and easy ways to test knowledge of students in a formative manner before they leave your class for the day.

https://kahoot.com/

Bell ringers/minds on, on the other hand, were always my weak point.  I would always just put up a question from the night before and have students answer to ensure they learned the previous days material.  This is similar to a ticket out the door so it was always a bit repetitive.  This is something that I will need to work on because math is not always the fun subject but if I can make it fun then students will be more engaged.  I know a fun video or gizmo about the topic may be a good way to start off the lesson.

What are some ways you do a minds on or bell ringer?
What about some of your ended ways?

Lets all share so that everyone can increase their resources and pick up some awesome ideas!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Courtney,

    I also enjoy using Kahoot as well with students because it's an easy way to integrate technology and students are able to be engaged in the lesson. One way I like to do Bell Ringers/Tickets Out the Door is by using a KWL Chart. KWL stands for "What Do You KNOW, What Do You WANT TO LEARN, & What Did You LEARN" For the most part, I have students fill in the first two sections at the beginning of the lesson or unit and I use that as a way to know what students know already, and what key concepts I should focus on more or teach. The last section is usually the ticket out the door; students fill in what they learned and I can use that as immediate feedback to see what students have learned the concepts well and what students still need some support.

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  2. Hello,
    Thank you for sharing. I think ticket out the door is a great way to ensure that the students understand the lesson. As you commented and read my post, the strategy I use is that I have the students answer questions on a mini white board. I will definitely give a ticket out the door a shot this coming Monday. It will be a great addition to my lessons!

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  3. Hey everyone...
    I agree with you Courtney; I also tried a review question per day as a bell ringer, where students write and answer on their mini-notebooks (which stayed in class). However, after few weeks, it became repetitive and changed the activity a bit. Instead, students were chosen by a draw the day before to prepare a lesson-related question to display the next day. It was interesting to discuss different levels of questions. This way also placed some responsibility upon students to well review their lesson and come up with a question.

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