You can visit my Diagnostic Questions website here.
More tips from Craig Barton
Summary
This YouTube video by Craig Barton advocates for using diagnostic questions as exit tickets. Diagnostic questions, unlike typical exit tickets, are multiple-choice questions where incorrect answers reveal specific student misconceptions. Barton highlights four advantages: eliminating printing, providing immediate feedback, enabling precise diagnosis of misunderstandings, and offering opportunities for stretch and challenge. He suggests using mini-whiteboards or cards for voting and proposes a follow-up challenge of modifying the question to make incorrect answers correct. The video concludes with an invitation to explore his website for more diagnostic questions.
What are the implications for teachers?
For teachers, the use of diagnostic questions as exit tickets offers several benefits.
- Time-Saving: Diagnostic questions can be projected, eliminating the need for printing and distributing paper. This saves time and resources typically spent on photocopying and handing out materials.
- Immediate Feedback: Teachers can get a snapshot of student understanding instantly by having students vote using mini-whiteboards or ABCD cards. This eliminates the time lag associated with traditional exit tickets that need to be collected and reviewed later.
- Targeted Instruction: By analyzing the responses to diagnostic questions, teachers can identify specific misunderstandings among students. This allows them to tailor their instruction and address those misconceptions immediately in the lesson, avoiding delays until the next class.
- Stretch and Challenge: Diagnostic questions can be used to challenge students further even when there is a consensus on the correct answer. For example, teachers can ask students to modify the question to make the incorrect answers correct, promoting deeper understanding.
The use of diagnostic questions as exit tickets, therefore, allows for more efficient and effective teaching practices.
