Implementing a ‘Halftime Ticket’ to Gauge Understanding

Early in my career as a middle school English language arts teacher, I would grade my students’ papers on Sunday while watching football. But each Sunday, I would find myself getting more and more frustrated. Not because my team was having another terrible season, but because my students’ test scores were coming in lower than my team’s final score.

I had taught it. Why weren’t they getting it? Or better yet, how didn’t I notice this leading up to the test? As when watching the game film after the game, it was too late to make changes to their performance on this assessment, but it was clear I needed to change something about my instruction.

Whether you’re a sports fan or not, we’re all aware of halftime in sports like football, basketball, and soccer. Halftime is not just a chance to see a great performance by the band, cheerleaders, or musical artist; it’s for the players and coaches to have a necessary break from the action and reassess what is going well and what areas need improvement before the second half.

So many great victories in sports may have had a rough first half, but thanks to some adjustments using the coach’s chalk board and a rousing motivational pep talk, the team was able to turn it around in the second half. I decided to have my own classroom “halftime.”

No, I couldn’t book performances by JLo, Bruno Mars, or Lady Gaga (they never responded), but I could use my halftime as a chance for students to demonstrate their progress toward the daily objective so I knew whether or not they were headed for the goal before the game (class) was over. Thus, I began using a “halftime ticket.”

What is a Halftime Ticket?

Similar to an exit ticket—a quick assessment that students take at the end of class to determine if they reached the daily objective—a halftime ticket is a quick assessment in the middle of class to determine which students reached the daily objective. The difference is that with a halftime ticket, there is still time to provide either an intervention or a more rigorous extension activity before the end of class, based on student performance.

To implement a halftime ticket, you’ll need to plan ahead to ensure that you have time for everything you want to cover. When thinking about the first half of the lesson, plan a window of three to 10 minutes during which you will give the halftime ticket. This should come after you’ve introduced content and given students time to practice; it doesn’t have to be exactly halfway through the lesson.

You’ll also want to plan ahead for how you’ll provide support or extension for students who need it.

For the students who demonstrate success on the halftime ticket, you will need to create extension activities that will increase the rigor or complexity of the standard. This can be problem-based, project-based, technology-based, or practice at a higher depth of knowledge. For students who did not demonstrate success on the halftime ticket, you will need to create lesson-aligned interventions that may include support like including sentence stems, providing additional visuals, or chunking the material.

The halftime ticket itself should be a short assessment, one to three questions, that will help you determine if students are achieving the lesson objectives. This works best if students can complete the questions quickly and easily. I like to use whiteboards or online polls and quizzes, depending on what students are already using for the lesson.

Students complete the assessment independently so you can get an accurate understanding of each student’s progress with the lesson. Once you have the quantitative data, either collected quickly and visually from whiteboards or automatically displayed from online responses, you are ready to move into the second half of the lesson. This is where you can intervene or provide extension for students as needed.

In the second half of class, students who were successful on the halftime ticket will work independently on the extension activities you’ve planned. Students who need more support with the content will work with you in a small group on the intervention activities you’ve prepared.

Keep in mind that if the number of students who are unsuccessful with the halftime ticket is beyond what would be considered a “small group” (it happens), you would want to continue as a full-class reteach with the interventions you planned. Students who are successful would still do the extension activities.

5 BENEFITS OF a halftime ticket

A halftime ticket offers many benefits for you and your students, but these five are the most important:

1. It ensures time for daily data. Teachers may run out of time during their lesson and never get to their exit ticket or daily assessment. The halftime ticket ensures that data for each student is being collected for analysis.

2. It helps with bell to bell instruction. It can be challenging to keep students engaged for the entire class (especially if you are on a block schedule with classes at 80 minutes or more). The “second half” helps fill up the entire time with authentic and productive work.

3. It creates an opportunity for instant feedback. Instead of students waiting for an assessment to be graded and handed back to get feedback (and if the students actually look at it), they receive feedback in real time.

4. It allows for student differentiation. In instruction, one size does not fit all. This technique allows many students to rise above the rigor of the standard or for others to receive the support to meet the standard.

5. It increases student engagement and reduces misbehavior. Negative student behavior can typically happen for two reasons: Either the work is too easy or the work is too difficult. Students typically want to do well on the halftime ticket because they earn the autonomy they crave, but if they are not successful, those students will get the attention they deserve.

Since incorporating these halftime tickets into my own lessons as a teacher and helping other teachers to incorporate these as an instructional coach and administrator, I have seen how halftime tickets have truly helped make mid-class adjustments that get our students to the goal. If only my football team could do the same.