Tired of gleaming-eyed lectures and students checking their phones? Spice up your lessons and improve with Pear Deck, an interactive tool that turns presentations into dynamic learning experiences. What is a Pear Deck? Think of it as a Google Slide or PowerPoint with real-time student interaction. Pear Deck allows you to add interesting questions, polls, and videos directly to your existing outreach. Students log in with each device, answer anonymously or publicly, and show their answers live for the class to see.

Benefits for teachers: 

Increase engagement: Break up the monotony of a lecture with features that keep students focused and excited to participate. 

Real-time insights: Instantly measure comprehension with live feedback and identify areas that need more attention. 

Make a Difference: Practice learning styles with open-ended questions, polls, and visuals. 

Facilitate discussion: Encourage classroom discourse by establishing discussion stimuli and exploring student responses together. 

Collect systematic reviews: Collect valuable data on student achievement through embedded questionnaires and self-directed study groups.

Starting the Pear Deck: 

Create a free account: Go to https://www.peardeck.com and sign up for a free teacher account. 

Choose your platform: Seamlessly integrate Pear Deck with Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint Online. 

Create your presentation: Include interactive elements such as multiple-choice, open-ended questions, highlights, or drag-and-drop.

Start your meeting: Pass the join code to your students to start a live session. 

Interactive and analytical: Monitor student responses in real time, evaluate responses as a class, and use data for personalized guidance. 

Beyond the basics:

Use templates: Have a library of pre-made content that matches different topics and classes. 

Collaborate with peers: Share lessons and resources with fellow teachers through the Pear Deck community. 

Look for rich content: Create advanced tools like new Teacher Dashboards to give students deeper insights and answer choices.

Remember: Pear Deck isn’t just technology; it’s about fostering an active and participatory learning environment. Experiment, explore, and discover how Pear Deck can transform your classroom into a place where every student feels engaged, empowered, and eager to learn! 

Bonus tip: Encourage students to reflect by including an “exit ticket” at the end of your Pear Deck session. Ask students to share their main takeaways or areas they’d like to explore further.