Show of hands: Who loves Exit Tickets? Whether you do or don't, everybody wins when it comes to the lessons in Unit 5 Intro to Investing & Exponential Functions (and every unit in NGPF's Financial Algebra course, for that matter). 

The Financial Algebra Course is populated with two types of lessons -- personal finance centered lessons (infused with a bunch of math), and algebra lessons (with lots of problems framed in real or realistic personal finance scenarios). The two types of lessons end with two different types of closing activities. Usually you can assess whether it's a personal finance lesson or math lesson based on title alone, but if you're not sure, you can always check the Unit Plan, which clearly marks each type. In Unit 5, lessons 1, 4, 6, and 7 are personal finance, and 2, 3, and 5 are math. 

Closing out a Personal Finance Lesson

Personal finance lessons end with an Exit Ticket, and the Exit Tickets exist in two formats. Let's look at 5.1 - Why Should I Invest? If you click on the Student Activity Packet (designed to distribute to students to help them follow along with the entire lesson's content), no Exit Tickets are printed there. That's because we know some teachers want Exit Tickets to be an assessment of unassisted retention/understanding and don't want students completing them as the lesson goes along. If you click on the Lesson Guide, you'll see the EXIT TICKET as the last resource. 

This provides three things, identical in terms of content but in different format: 

1. The three-question exit ticket, written out, with the correct answer highlighted in red as an answer key for you -- please don't share it with your students!
2. A link saying Google Doc, which links to a single document containing the Exit Tickets for the entire unit's personal finance lessons (in this case, 5.1, 5.4, 5.6, and 5.7). Each Exit Ticket is on its own page, so you can easily separate them, print and distribute, consolidate them into fewer pages, etc. -- whatever works best for your class
3. A link saying Google Form, which when you click prompts you to create your own copy of the Lesson 5.1 Exit Ticket questions as a Google Form, which you can then distribute to students and which will be auto graded as they submit

Closing out a Math Lesson

Let's switch gears and look at a math lesson, such as 5.2 - Exploring Exponential Growth. Math lessons do not have Exit Tickets but rather end with a hefty Application, providing problem sets on three levels, increasing in difficulty. On the Student Activity Packet, students will simply see that the lesson ends with an Apply It message saying their teacher will provide the Application Problems. Teachers can find the Application Problems in two ways: 

1. The student-facing Application is linked on the teachers-only Lesson Guide and directly from the website 
2. The Application Answer Key is available directly from the website

There you have it -- the two ways the Financial Algebra lessons wrap up -- Exit Ticket or Application problem set. We love them both and hope you do, too! 

And speaking of stuff we love, here are some great recommendations from Unit 5 Intro to Investing & Exponential Functions: 

• MATH: Return on Investment -- includes a "how to" tutorial in the form of an Edpuzzle
• ANALYZE: Inequalities in Investing -- the other type of inequality, a societal look at who invests
• PLAY: Roll with the Market -- a fun game, now with a Teacher Tip video to assist you in running it for the first time

About the Author

Jessica Endlich

When I started working at Next Gen Personal Finance, it's as though my undergraduate degree in finance, followed by ten years as an educator in an NYC public high school, suddenly all made sense.