Pear Deck - An excellent tool to take formative assessments ★★★★★

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“Students learn more when they participate in the process of learning, whether it’s through discussion, practice, review, or application.”— STANFORD UNIVERSITY TEACHING COMMONS

If you are looking for an interactive tool that fosters inquiry-based learning and can actively engage students in individual and social learning, you ought to try Pear Deck. Pear Deck is a great platform to assess your learners during the learning process. Just as in a class situation we cross-question students to verify their understanding, this tool lets you achieve the same result by integrating Pear Deck question slides with your Google slides (while a concept is being taught).

The tool comes with its own ready-made question templates for you to drag it directly onto your regular slides. There is a teacher dashboard available which gives you an overview of individual responses to questions with an option to give instant feedback to the child. This feature lets teachers analyze student engagement, comprehension, and lesson efficacy. Furthermore, the tool serves as an authentic assessment as students can not view others responses, and the test can be taken in teacher-paced (control of slide movement is with the teacher) or student-paced (student can attempt the test at their leisure) mode. All of these features blend wonderfully with Google slides without any need for us to log in to a new website. 

Pear Deck also lets teachers determine when and what responses to share with the whole class via the main presentation screen. Teachers can highlight a specific student response, toggle between responses, or in some instances share all student responses.

While building their decks, teachers can choose from four question types:
    • Draggable questions take the form of agree/disagree or thumbs up/thumbs down
    • Drawing questions allow students to free draw in a blank space or on a grid
    • Free-response questions have short text, long text, and number capabilities
    • Multiple choice questions take the form of yes/no, true/false, or A, B, C, D

By asking open-ended questions, we show learners how to inquire, stumble, wonder, and discover. Pear Deck helps you ask open-ended questions and engage with every student's answers. A sample question gallery, help articles and ideas for educators are included alongside Google slides regular interface.

Enhance Accessibility with audio support - Combine written and audio instructions to ensure that students understand the material and the task at hand. Students can listen to the recording several times at their own pace. If you’re working on strengthening students’ listening strategies, you could record your voice and add interactive prompts asking students to listen and interpret meaning from your voice and tone.

Pear Pop - We can't always anticipate teachable moments. When we need to engage students on the fly, Pear Pop is here to help, during any activity, anytime. Pear Pop is an exciting new way to use Pear Deck’s tried and true features. During a Pear Pop session, you’ll still have access to the powerful Teacher Dashboard where you can see student responses in real-time, use the Timer and Lock Screens, and add prompts as you go using the New Prompt button. 

Here are some creative ways in which you can use this prompt -
  • Need a minute at the beginning of class? Pear Pop a bell ringer!
  • Not sure if students are understanding the activity’s key insights? Take a five-minute break for a one- or two-question Pear Pop and gauge comprehension!
  • A student asks a great question and you want everyone to think and discuss? Pear Pop a prompt and Think-Pair-Share!
  • On a field trip? Don’t let the learning moments slip away — Pear Pop and prompt reflection on the way home! 
Attached to this mail is a 'Pear Deck How to Handbook' to help you make the most of Pear Deck in your classroom. The guide has numerous ideas that will help you spark curiosity and challenge intuition of your learners instead of just delivering facts—letting learners become self-motivated and in turn, achieving active learning in your class.

Some useful links -
Live Daily Webinar: Remote Learning with Pear Deck - The basics of creating and presenting with Pear Deck, best practices for leading discussions and engaging students remotely, and how to use Pear Deck features to facilitate synchronous and asynchronous remote lessons will be covered.
Pear Deck Distance Learning - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrxsGQxwj_w
How to make interactive Google Slides with Pear Deck - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0ALtFL6HSE

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