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Overview

Pear Deck Overview (2:10)

Description

Pear Deck is an educational web-based tool that can be used from kindergarten to grade 12.  This interactive tool brings life to a presentation through google slides and engages students through active, social and individual learning.  This tool can be used by the educator to ask questions spark inquiry and quiz knowledge on just about anything.

Justification for Using this Tool

Pear Deck is an important tool as it falls under the constructivist learning theory.  Through this theory, it plays on two significant umbrellas which are active learning and social constructivism.  Constructivism’s main idea is that students construct new knowledge from prior knowledge and experience (Mc Leod, 2019).  While constructing new knowledge educators prompt discussion to engage students in their learning (active learning) (Mc Leod, 2019).  Through discussion, students will engage with one another on the lesson provided by the educator building on collaborative skills, problem-solving skills and student motivation increases (social constructivism) (Mc Leod, 2019).

Pear Deck is used through google slides which are a fun and easy platform to use.  Using Pear Deck as an add-on in slides makes this tool even easier to use as there are many different templates that can be used to engage learners.  Each slide can be tailored to what the lesson is on and explains what the student expectations would be for that particular slide. Since the slides in Pear Deck are well designed with pictures it is difficult to add a lot of text to the slides limiting the educator to segmenting and chunking information on more slides than just one (Clark & Mayer, 2011).  This is also a great multimedia tool where educators can use their own graphics and wording to help students grasp the concepts presented in the lesson (Clark & Mayer, 2011). With these design principles, it allows classroom engagement and reduces cognitive load.

Strategies for Use

Strategy 1 – For Educators

Pear Deck for Educator Use (3:04)

This is a quick overview of how educators can get the Pear Deck add-on and some of its many features.

Strategy 2 – Student Session in Pear Deck

Student Session in Pear Deck (2:15)

This is a quick video of a student session.  This displays an example of what they would see if they were in a session set up by the educator.

Helpful Resources

Resource 1 –Pear Deck in Google Slides

• This video shows users how to use Pear Deck in Google Slides as an add-on.

Resource 2 – Review Student Answers in Pear Deck

• This video shows educators how to retrieve student answers from a lesson that is no longer live.

Resource 3 – Help in Pear Deck

• This website can help answer questions that one may have when it comes to using Pear Deck.

References

Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-Learning and the science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Doi: http//dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118255971

McLeod, S. A. (2019, July 17). Constructivism as a theory for teaching and learning. Simply psychology. Available from https://www.simplypsychology.org/constructivism.html

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