Timely, actionable, and comparable classroom-embedded exit ticket data empowers math teams to make faster, more effective instructional decisions.
Status: Completed September 2025
Researchers analyzed data from 2,400+ students in grades 6–8 across three districts and 128 classrooms. Exit tickets (called “Cool Downs” in the Illustrative Mathematics curriculum) are brief formative assessments completed at the end of math lessons to gauge student understanding. These were aligned to the Illustrative Mathematics curriculum, scored with a common rubric, and tagged for strategy use and misconception type to examine which classroom patterns best predict year-end outcomes.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
- To what extent do the patterns in student work data predict other student outcomes, including end-of-the-year achievement tests?
key findings:
- Formative work predicts outcomes. Average rubric scores on exit tickets are strongly correlated (r=0.67) with both math course grades and state test results across grades 6-8 across the three districts.
- Misconceptions are not equal. Even when controlling for overall performance levels, exit tickets flagged as incomplete/did not answer or showing conceptual misunderstandings are linked to lower year-end performance.
- Trying multiple strategies helps. Students who attempt more than one strategy on an exit ticket tend to have higher state test scores.