18 Of The Best Formative Assessment Tools For Digital Exit Tickets

18 of the best formative assessment tools for teachers–to glean data, take snapshots of understanding, create digital exit slips, and more.

Best Formative Assessment Tools For Teachers
November 5, 2025 | Updated November 8, 2025

What Are The Best Formative Assessment Tools For Digital Exit Tickets?

contributed by Ryan Schaaf, Assistant Professor of Technology, Notre Dame of Maryland University

Digital Exit Slips: 21 Formative Assessment Tools for Grades 8-12

You have a classroom full of students packing up after an instructional lesson.

Your mind goes to the critical questions: Did my students get the lesson? Are there any concepts or skills they are still unsure of? Do students have misconceptions about the content? Do I need to review anything tomorrow?

These are the questions reflective educators contemplate. These questions are addressed immediately by using an **exit ticket**. Exit tickets are a simple, quick, and insightful **formative assessment** method employed at the end of a lesson. They require learners to answer a few questions or perform a task based on the content explored during class.

Exit ticket formats vary. You can use multiple-choice, short written responses, matching, or polls. Exit tickets must be short, concise, and engage learners in reviewing the skills explored. They are also ideal for continuing the learning into the next class, often used to activate students’ previous knowledge immediately upon entry.

In the age of digital learning, exit tickets are no longer confined to paper slips. Numerous digital tools are available to collect this valuable performance data instantly.

21 Digital Exit Slip Tools for Immediate Formative Assessment

These tools move beyond simple paper collection, providing you with student data in real time or in easy-to-analyze reports, streamlining your instructional decisions.

Core Data & Flexible Tools
Tool Use and Instructional Value Best For
Google Forms A free, versatile tool for creating custom quizzes and short-answer forms. Responses populate a Google Sheet, making data aggregation and sharing easy. Ideal for simple checks and reflections. Quick checks, short written reflections, and centralized data reporting.
Socrative Allows quick creation of quizzes and activities accessed via a room code. Provides real-time results and instant reports for on-the-spot adjustments to the lesson plan. Rapid multiple-choice quizzes and immediate class temperature checks.
Hand Signals (Non-Digital) The basic thumbs up/sideways/down method. Provides instant, self-assessed formative data for immediate whole-class instructional pivots. Zero setup required. Instant, whole-class self-assessment for confidence level check.
Plickers A low-tech solution. Students hold up unique printed cards; the teacher scans the room with a single device to instantly collect and report student data. Useful in classrooms with limited student devices. Quick multiple-choice questions while ensuring every student submits a private answer.
Padlet A collaborative digital bulletin board. Students post text, images, or links onto a shared space. Great for quick brainstorming or collecting one key takeaway from the class. Collaborative brainstorming, collecting shared ideas, and visual summaries.
GoFormative (Formative) A comprehensive platform for formative assessment. You can digitize existing paper worksheets, provide real-time, in-line feedback, and track student progress against specific learning standards. Digitizing paper exit slips and receiving real-time, standards-aligned data.
Gamified & Interactive Assessment
Tool Use and Instructional Value Best For
Kahoot! A game-based platform that turns quizzes into timed competitions. Use live games for immediate review or assign “Challenges” for self-paced, asynchronous tickets. Gamified review and competitive, low-stakes final assessment.
Quizizz Similar to Kahoot! but offers a **student-paced** option. Students can focus on accuracy without time pressure. Provides detailed data reports upon completion. Self-paced, gamified exit tickets, and differentiated homework assessments.
Mentimeter Creates interactive presentations with real-time polling, Q&A, and dynamic word clouds. Excellent for gauging whole-class understanding instantly and anonymously. Live, anonymous, and visually compelling exit polls (e.g., word clouds for key vocabulary).
Poll Everywhere Allows students to respond to questions in real-time using text messages or a web link. Effective for quick, anonymous, live-class polls and open-ended responses. Quick, anonymous polling, and ranking or prioritizing concepts.
Video & Media-Based Assessment
Tool Use and Instructional Value Best For
Flip (formerly Flipgrid) A video-based discussion platform. Students respond to a prompt with short videos or audio clips summarizing the lesson or posing a key question. Good for assessing student articulation. Assessing communication skills, deeper personal reflection, or video-based content summaries.
13. EdPuzzle Allows you to take any video (YouTube, self-created) and embed multiple-choice or open-ended questions at specific points. Provides data on comprehension and viewing habits. Checking comprehension of video content and assessing understanding in flipped learning models.
VoiceThread Enables students to hold an asynchronous discussion around media (documents, slides) by adding audio, text, or video comments. Offers a media-rich, conversational assessment. Exit tickets requiring commentary, annotation, or peer feedback on a piece of media.
LMS & Presentation-Embedded Tools
Tool Use and Instructional Value Best For
Google Classroom Your Learning Management System (LMS). It is the easiest platform to distribute, collect, and grade any exit ticket you create using other tools like Google Forms or Pear Deck. Streamlining workflow, assignment distribution, data storage, and feedback delivery.
Pear Deck Integrates directly with Google Slides/PowerPoint to transform presentations into interactive lessons. Add drawing prompts, text responses, or polls to the final slide for an embedded exit ticket. Exit tickets seamlessly built into the lesson delivery to check for understanding at the very end.
Nearpod A comprehensive interactive lesson tool. Embed polls, quizzes, and drawing activities directly into a presentation. Includes gamified options like “Time to Climb.” Interactive lessons with an embedded end-of-class check for understanding and engaging activities.
Specialized & Advanced Tools
Tool Use and Instructional Value Best For
IXL An adaptive platform focused on skill mastery. Assign a specific “Skill” from the lesson to immediately check for application and provide instant, differentiated practice and feedback. Immediate post-lesson practice and skill mastery checks.
FigJam / Miro Digital whiteboards for visual, collaborative thinking. Students post sticky notes, mind-map, or use “dot-voting” to prioritize concepts or questions. FigJam is simpler; Miro is more feature-rich. Collaborative reflections, visual summary of concepts, or peer-voted questions.
Canva for Education A powerful design tool (free for educators) that now includes built-in **Polls & Quizzes** and an **AI Quiz Generator**. Use it for real-time checks or for students to create visual summaries. Visually creative exit tickets, graphic organizer submissions, or real-time quiz checks within a presentation.
Crowd Signal (Alternative) A simple survey and poll creation platform providing basic, non-gamified data collection via a simple link. A functional, no-frills option. Simple, web-based survey or multiple-choice exit poll creation.

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