Presented by Tony Vincent • July 2026

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Smart Lesson Hooks

This handout summarizes the key strategies, tools, and prompts for creating engaging lesson hooks using AI.

🧠 The "Why": Brain-Based Hooks

A lesson hook works by sparking curiosity, which is a powerful neurological tool.

  • The Power of Prediction: Hooks that ask students to predict an outcome "boost surprise" and lead to "enhanced attention" and "stronger encoding" of the correct answer.
  • The "Betting Ticket" Analogy: The brain is wired for high interest when clues prompt prediction. Students' brains need to find out if their predictions are correct, just like a person holding a betting ticket needs to know the race results.
  • The "Anticipatory Set": This is the formal term for a hook that connects prior knowledge and gets students ready to learn, as seen in the Madeline Hunter lesson plan model.

💡 Creative Analogies for Lesson Hooks

Think of your hook as...

  • A Movie Trailer: It showcases the most exciting moments and makes students need to experience the full lesson.
  • A "Scroll Stopper": It's a surprising image or question that breaks students' mental pattern of distraction and makes them "lean in".
  • A Bridge: It connects the "island" of your students' world to the "island" of your new content.
  • The Ignition Key: A great lesson plan is the car, but the hook is the key that "ignites the engine of curiosity" and provides momentum.
  • The Appetizer: A small, flavorful bite that surprises the "palate" of the mind and builds anticipation for the main course.

🤖 AI-Powered Hook Strategies

Use these prompt structures to generate ideas for any topic or grade level with ChatGPT or Copilot.

  • Tease Content with an Image
    • Prompt: “I’m teaching [Topic: coordinating conjunctions] to [Grade Level: 7th graders]. Suggest an image I can use as a hook that sparks curiosity, connects to the idea of combining or joining, but isn’t too obvious.”
  • Connect to Prior Knowledge
    • Prompt: "Give me 5 ways that the [Topic 1: water cycle] and [Unexpected Topic 2: football] are unexpectedly connected."
  • Discuss a What-If Scenario
    • Prompt: "Develop a hypothetical scenario where [Grade Level: kindergarteners] have to make a decision about [Topic: subtraction]."
  • Share Surprising Tidbits
    • Prompt: "Give me little-known or surprising trivia about [Topic: sound weather patterns] that most [Grade Level: 3rd graders] probably don't know."
  • Decipher Fact from Fiction (2 Truths & a Lie)
    • Prompt: "Write two truths and a very convincing lie for [Grade Level: 9th grade ELA] students about [Topic: George Orwell]."
  • Bust a Myth
    • Prompt: "What are common myths, false assumptions, or counter-intuitive facts for [Grade Level: 10th graders] about the [Topic: principles of design]?"
  • Tease the Topic with a "Movie Trailer"
    • Prompt: "Write a short script for a dramatic movie trailer about the [Topic: Boston Tea Party] for [Grade Level: 5th graders]."
  • Get a Different Point of View
    • Prompt: "Explore [Topic: peer pressure] from a different point of view for [Grade Level: 3rd graders]."
  • Create a Riddle
    • Prompt: "Make a rhyming riddle for [Grade Level: 6th grade art] students where the answer is [Topic: printmaking]."
  • Find a Visual Metaphor
    • Prompt: "I'm teaching [Topic: coordinating conjunctions] to [Grade Level: 7th graders]. Suggest an image I can use as a hook that sparks curiosity, connects to the idea of [Concept: combining or joining], but isn't too obvious." (Example: A train car coupling).
  • Get a Variety of Ideas
    • Prompt: "Give me 5 creative lesson hook ideas for teaching [Topic: sportmanship] to [Grade Level: 4th grade] students. Each hook should take less than 5 minutes and spark curiosity."
  • More lesson hook prompts

🛠️ Visual & Text-Based Hook Tools

  • Pixelate or Swirl an Image
    • Tool: LunaPic.com
    • How: Upload an image and use the Pixelate (Adjust menu) or Swirl (Effect menu). Show it to students and ask, "What is this? Explain your guess."
  • Blur Images
    • Tool: Visiblur
    • How: Add a new Set. Upload one or more images. Save and show full screen. Each time you click reduces the blur 10%. Get students curious and guessing about the image and its connection to your lesson.
  • Generate a Mad Lib
    • Concept: Paste in a paragraph about your topic and make it a lib. Have students provide words (nouns, verbs, etc.) to fill in the blanks of a paragraph about your topic. Read the silly version, then reveal the original words.
    • Tool: Lesson Libs

✅ Practical Reminders

  1. Keep it short
  2. Make it relevant to the lesson
  3. Let the hook reappear during the lesson
  4. Change up your hooks so they aren't predictable

💎 Tony’s Lesson Hook GPT

This is a GPT with custom instructions. Tell it about your lesson and it will give you several hooks to choose from.

Smart Exits: Designing and Analyzing Exit Tickets with AI

Exit tickets are a quick way to check for understanding, guide next steps, and give every student a voice. In this session, you’ll work with Gemini to design meaningful exit ticket questions. You’ll also use Gemini to analyze student responses, gaining helpful insights and suggestions. You’ll see examples across grade levels, have time to try it yourself, and leave with exit tickets and AI workflows you can immediately apply in your classroom.

Definition

An exit ticket is a quick, informal assessment given at the close of an activity or class period. It serves to check for student understanding and gather immediate feedback, often including student reflection or feelings about their learning, which an instructor then uses to guide and inform future lessons.

Categories of Exit Ticket Questions

  • 🧠 Understanding: Explain today's main concept in your own words.
  • 🛠️ Application: Give a real-world example of how you could use today's skill.
  • 🤔 Reflection: What part of today's lesson felt easiest? Hardest?
  • 👍 Confidence: How confident are you that you can solve this kind of problem?
  • 🔗 Connection: How does today's topic connect to what we learned yesterday?
  • 💬 Feedback: What could I do differently to help you learn this better?
  • 😊 Emotion: One word to describe how you felt during today's activity.

Exit Ticket Question Banks

Click the links below to explore curated banks of questions.

Exit Ticket Advice

  • Keep it low stakes
  • Keep it short
  • Elicit reflection
  • Use clear, specific language
  • Consider offering choices
  • Change up the questions and format
  • Focus on the learning goal
  • Ask students to name what or who helped them
  • Make exit tickets a regular routine
  • Preview the next topic
  • Make responses easy to collect
  • Act on results

Work with Gemini to Develop Exit Tickets

Example exit ticket question prompt: “I teach 7th grade social studies. Students explored how trade connects countries around the world. Suggest 3 exit ticket questions that check understanding and encourage reflection.”

When asking Gemini for question suggestions, you can upload a document, PDF, lesson plan, or even a photo of the textbook pages to give Gemini for context.

Exit Ticket Question Generator
Bookmark this custom GPT and use it to help you brainstorm multiple types of questions.
See Tony’s instructions for this GPT.

Universal Prompt for Analyzing Exit Tickets

Look at these exit ticket answers. What do they show about what my students understood, what they’re confused about, and what I should do next? Who should I check in with?

Analyze Exit Tickets with Microsoft Forms

Analyze Exit Tickets Submitted through Microsoft Forms (Download Method)

  1. After students have submitted their forms, view the form’s responses, and download a copy.
  2. Go to copilot.microsoft.com, click the plus, and add the Excel file.
  3. In the chat bar, ask for a summary, next steps, who to check in with, etc.

Analyze Exit Tickets Submitted through Microsoft Forms (Copy from Excel Method)

  1. After students have submitted their forms, view the form’s responses, and open in Excel.
  2. In Excel, select and copy everything in the spreadsheet.
  3. Go to copilot.microsoft.com.
  4. In the chat bar, ask for a summary, next steps, who to check in with, etc. and paste.

Reusable Exit Tickets

<53 Character Summary

Set up a Microsoft Form that limits the number of characters in a response. For a text question, click ⋯ and choose Restrictions to set a maximum or minimum character length.

Smart Lesson Hooks and Exit Tickets: Using AI to Spark Curiosity and Save Time

July 21, 2026
Killeen, Texas
Written by ChatGPT based on the transcript and exit ticket submissions

What if the first two minutes of a lesson could make the next forty minutes more engaging?

That was the challenge at "Smart Lesson Hooks and Exit Tickets," where Killeen ISD teachers explored how AI can help create memorable lesson openings, meaningful lesson closings, and actionable insights from student responses. Rather than replacing teacher creativity, the session focused on using AI as a thought partner, helping educators brainstorm ideas, personalize lessons, and spend less time staring at a blank screen.

The biggest message of the session was simple:

Great teaching still starts with teachers. AI simply helps with the heavy lifting.

Curiosity Comes First

One theme appeared again and again throughout the session: curiosity drives learning. Research shows that when students make predictions, wonder about something, or try to solve a mystery, they're more likely to pay attention and remember what comes next.

Instead of beginning with, "Today we're learning about...", teachers practiced creating openings that made students ask, "Wait...what's going on?"

Some favorite hook strategies included:

  • Blurred or pixelated mystery images

  • Swirled photos that gradually reveal themselves

  • Close-up photos students have to identify

  • Two truths and a convincing lie

  • Surprising facts or myths

  • "Would You Rather?" questions

  • Short movie trailer-style introductions

  • Real-world scenarios that delay introducing the academic vocabulary

As one participant shared afterward:

"One takeaway from this session is that a strong lesson hook can increase student engagement by creating curiosity and encouraging them to wonder, question and make connections."

AI as Your Brainstorm Partner

Rather than asking AI to simply "make me a lesson," teachers learned to use it for something much more valuable: brainstorming.

Need an analogy for place value?

Want a mystery object that introduces conjunctions?

Trying to make lab safety exciting?

Those are exactly the kinds of creative thinking tasks where AI shines.

During the session, teachers experimented with prompts that asked AI to:

  • Suggest unusual images connected to a lesson

  • Generate analogies and metaphors

  • Create hypothetical scenarios

  • Write dramatic movie trailers

  • Develop surprising trivia

  • Produce multiple hook ideas so teachers could choose the best one

The emphasis wasn't on accepting AI's first answer.

Instead:

  • Ask for more ideas.

  • Refine the prompt.

  • Combine the best pieces.

  • Add your own expertise.

Pictures Really Are Worth a Thousand Words

One of the most popular demonstrations involved transforming ordinary images into classroom mysteries.

Teachers learned how to:

  • Blur images

  • Pixelate photos

  • Swirl pictures into abstract puzzles

  • Slowly reveal images to build anticipation

Instead of immediately showing students a train coupler before a lesson on conjunctions, for example, students first guessed what the mystery object might be. Only after several predictions was the image revealed and connected to the concept of "joining."

The strategy works because students naturally want to solve puzzles.

As the session emphasized, a hook doesn't have to be elaborate. It simply needs to make students curious enough to lean in.

Don't Forget the Exit

The second half of the session shifted from starting lessons to ending them.

Teachers explored how AI can instantly create exit tickets aligned to a lesson and, perhaps even more importantly, analyze the responses afterward.

Rather than spending valuable planning time sorting papers by hand, AI can:

  • Identify misconceptions

  • Spot common trends

  • Suggest small groups

  • Recommend next instructional steps

  • Highlight students who need individual follow-up

Several participants said this completely changed how they viewed exit tickets.

One teacher wrote:

"I used to think AI would be helpful in preparation, but now I know it is also helpful in analyzing data."

Another reflected:

"I used to think that it took a lot of time to get data, but now I know that with AI I can use the exit tickets and other things to help with the data."

Perhaps the biggest mindset shift came from realizing that exit tickets don't always have to ask, "What did you learn today?"

As one elementary teacher noted:

"I used to think that exit tickets had to be about what they learned, but now I know it can ask students what they struggle with instead."

That simple change provides teachers with far more useful information for tomorrow's lesson.

Teachers Left With New Possibilities

Throughout the workshop, participants built hooks for their own classrooms, from sentence structure to dyslexia instruction, volume, phonics, place value, and business education.

Many commented that AI removed one of the biggest barriers: time.

One participant summed it up well:

"I used to think I didn't have enough time to design innovative lesson openings and closings, but now I know AI can help me create them in minutes."

Others appreciated how AI expanded their thinking rather than replacing it.

"AI can use your content expertise, creating a perfect coupler to keep students engaged and monitor understanding."

Another teacher reflected on a change in perspective:

"I used to think people were being lazy using AI such as ChatGPT often, but now I know that it is a great tool to help liven your lesson as well as analyze data."

Practical Tips to Try Tomorrow

Teachers walked away with several easy ideas they could implement immediately:

  • Ask AI for 10 lesson hook ideas, then choose your favorite instead of settling for the first one.

  • Use mystery images to encourage prediction before introducing vocabulary.

  • Keep hooks short, but refer back to them during the lesson.

  • Rotate hook strategies so they stay fresh.

  • Let AI generate exit ticket questions, then use it again to analyze student responses and suggest instructional next steps.

  • Remember that AI is a collaborator, not the teacher. Your expertise is still what makes the lesson meaningful.

The Big Takeaway

The session wasn't really about artificial intelligence.

It was about making learning more engaging and making teachers' work more manageable.

Whether creating a mystery image that sparks discussion, brainstorming twenty creative lesson openings, or turning exit ticket responses into actionable instructional plans, AI gives teachers more time to focus on what matters most: connecting with students.

As one participant captured perfectly:

"I used to think that AI was just a tool to get quick info, but now I know that it can be used to support my teaching without making it impersonal and generic."