Pear Deck is a wonderful program that runs as an overlay on Google Slides. With this program, you can essentially take any Google Slide and make it interactive. The interactivity can be something as simple as students voting on their favorite book character or something as challenging as identifying and fixing an error in a math problem. With Pear Deck you can have an entire classroom full of students share their answers anonymously while you control the pace of a lesson. Even though the answers are anonymous to other students, the teacher gets to see behind the scenes and knows exactly how each student responded. Pear Deck can be short and quick, long and involved, or started on the fly. They can also be done as a whole class activity or they can be completed as a student-paced assignment where students control when they move to the next slide. Getting started with Pear Deck requires a little knowledge building. Check out the different activities below to help you get started. I recommend that you go in the order that the activities are posted.
This activity will help you explore Pear Deck and experience what it is like to participate in a Pear Deck.
Presenting a Pear Deck takes a little skill and finesse. This challenge will show you the difference between student-paced and teacher presented. You will also learn how to use the Teacher Dashboard and view student responses.
Once you know what a Pear Deck is, it is time to flex those muscles and build one of your own. You will learn how to either take an existing Google Slide presentation and turn it into a Pear Deck or you can build a brand new Pear Deck from scratch. Learn how to use five different interactive question types
Practice makes perfect! It is time to try your hand at presenting a Pear Deck. Review helpful tips and tricks and then try out a practice deck.
Ways to use Pear Deck with Students
Pear Deck promotes student participation in class without requiring students to raise their hand and be called on. Not only does it give the quietest student in your class a voice, it also allows you to see how students are responding to questions and activities in real time. Pear Deck gives students the opportunity to be immersed in your activity or note taking experience. They are not just captive audience members, but participants.
Teachers can use Pear Deck to:
Create interactive lessons
Provide a template for guided notes
Ask students questions where every student can give a response
Share student responses anonymously with the class to inspire and support class discussion
Create formative assessment activities to drive instruction
Take previously created Google Slide lessons and make them interactive
Use Pear Deck templates to create activities
Create bell ringers
Create exit tickets
Take the emotional temperature of the classroom
Construct diversified question sets
Hold students accountable for in class learning
Hold students accountable for independent learning
Give student unique opportunities to interact with content
Introduce concepts in new ways
Package lessons into an easy to access multimedia form
Embed websites or other materials into an interactive slide deck
Mimic testing environments for students unused to testing online
Launch a quick-prompt from the templates to build on class discussion or do a quick formative assessment
Use the NewsELA integration to teach lessons
Students can use Pear Deck to:
Interact with class content
Have their own copy of guided notes
Respond directly on their teacher's teaching materials
Complete Pear Deck activities in student-paced - allowing them to work in their own time and place
Play vocabulary games
Draw, type, or drag items to respond to questions and prompts
Experience media-rich, interactive content
Did you try any of the above activities? Did you have an idea of your own and you used Pear Deck to make it possible? Earn PD credit for your work by clicking here!
Turn flashcards into a group activity with Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory. Students work together to create visual flashcards and then the class decides which flashcards best represents the concepts.
Want to learn all about Flashcard Factory but don't need PD credit? Use this user guide to learn how to make your own vocabulary list and this guide to learn how to play Flashcard Factory with students.
Want to learn how to use Flashcard Factory and earn 2 PD Hours while you are doing it? Complete this activity.