We’re trying to do something a little different at Pear Deck, and it stems from our core vision for the world — people living inspired lives and engaging in the world with reason, honesty, and empathy.

We talk about this vision a lot at Pear Deck. What does it mean to live an inspired life? How can we personally engage in the world with reason, honesty, and empathy? As educators and people creating products for use in the classroom, what responsibility and opportunity do we have to develop these qualities in our students?

What inspires us daily is the work that you are doing. The amazing, creative, heart-stretching work of helping children grow into rational, honest, empathetic people who are prepared to engage with the world. It’s an awesome responsibility. Guiding students through their coursework would be a big job, but we know that’s just part of what you do. Caring for students’ whole selves, their emotional, physical, and psychological well-being is no small feat.

We know that many of you pull money from your own pockets for school supplies, coats for your students, food to keep kids fed over the weekends and breaks. We know that in the wake of natural disasters you use your own dollars to rebuild your classrooms, your homes, and still provide a little extra for your students. According to survey findings released by the Department of Education, 94 percent of public school teachers said they paid for supplies without reimbursement and the average teacher spent $479. It’s not exaggerating to say that we’re humbled by what teachers do on a daily basis. And always, we wish we could do more to support you.

While we know we can’t fund the needs of every teacher and every student, we want to help, even if it’s in a small way. So today, we’re launching a new program, designed to shine a spotlight on the extra good work that educators are doing and to do our small part to make things better.

Introducing Peary Good Works

Every month we’ll award $500 to an educator-led initiative. We’re working through DonorsChoose.org to administer these funds. If you have a project or there’s a need in your classroom we hope you’ll submit an application!

To participate, simply:

1. Register and start a project at DonorsChoose.org
2. Fill out the form on our site and share the link to your project
3. Keep doing your good work!

Our team will review the applications on a monthly basis and select a project to fund. We’re looking for projects that have a positive impact on students. We’re not looking to fund requests for Pear Deck or classroom devices.

Here’s what we hope happens with Peary Good Works:

• Good projects get funded
• We can raise awareness of the hard work that teachers are doing
• We shine a light on the issue of school funding
• We create a simple, sustainable way to support teachers

To kick off Peary Good Works, we’ll be making a $500 donation to the Hurricane Florence Recovery Fund to help teachers affected by the storm care for their students and restock their classrooms. (Thanks to Jennifer Walmsey @TchrWalmz for the suggestion!)

*Some might ask, why not make Pear Deck free for teachers and students?

We’d love to, but Pear Deck is a business. Because our team has specific talents, backgrounds, and interests, we’ve chosen to try to realize our vision by building the best possible tools for teachers and students to communicate and collaborate. To leverage classroom technology to give every student a voice and every teacher a window into their students’ progress. The money we charge to use Pear Deck supports 25 people and their families and we’re super proud of that fact. We hope that the work we produce truly benefits teachers and students and that the value you receive from using Pear Deck more than exceeds what we charge. For more information about our approach to edtech, check out this post from Chief Educator, Michal Eynon-Lynch.

Introducing Peary Good Works was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Each year as we head back into the classroom, our minds are filled with all the lessons, units, benchmarks, and projects we have planned in order to cover all of this year’s content. While we are focused on all the specific content and skills, we can lose sight of the bigger picture. More so than teaching facts, we want to make sure we teach our students to think. Dr. Seuss’s Miss Bonkers eloquently expresses the importance of thinking when she encourages her students not to fret about an impending test:

We’ve taught you that the earth is round,
That red and white make pink,
And something else that matters more — 
We’ve taught you how to think.”

“Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!” Dr. Seuss, with some help from Jack Prelutsky & Lane Smith, 1998

Teaching students how to think is tricky and abstract. Teaching students facts and formulas is fairly concrete; we can tell them information, give them defined ways of practicing, and then clearly measure if they know it or not. Thinking is different. It’s not a discrete skill we learn and then move on from. It’s also hard to measure whether students are getting better at it.

Getting better at thinking means flexing those muscles every day; if we don’t, those thinking muscles can atrophy. Of course, students flex their critical thinking muscles a little in every lesson, but they can make even better progress with some intentional skill-building. You can do this by asking thoughtful questions on the fly in discussions, or adding them at the end of any homework assignment. If you use Pear Deck, we’ve made a pack of brand-new templates for you to insert directly into any slide presentation.

To help you combat thinking atrophy in your classroom, I’ve put together a list of behaviors to look out for, as well ways you can counteract those thinking behaviors each day. I’ve also included a suggestion for which Pear Deck template you might use for your critical thinking intervention!

Behavior: Taking information at face value

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to identify the missing information. “What else do you want to know?” “What other information do you need to figure this out or draw a conclusion?”

Behavior: Stating an opinion but not knowing why they have that opinion

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to explain. “Why do you think that?” “What evidence would make you reconsider your opinion?”

Behavior: Only considering one point of view

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to consider or imagine another point of view. “What might someone else think about this?” Pair students up with someone who has a different point of view.

Behavior: Drawing a conclusion without reason

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to explain their reasoning. “What evidence from the text supports your conclusion?” “What steps did you take to get that answer?”

Behavior: Seeing each class and each unit of study as separated and unrelated

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to make connections between different topics. “How does today’s lesson relate to last month’s unit?”

Behavior: Not being able to come up with multiple ideas for approaching a problem or project

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to think creatively. “How might we…”

Behavior: Not being able to come to a conclusion or an opinion at all

Counteractive Measure: Ask students what they think. “What did you like about that lesson?” “What was confusing?”

Behavior: Not knowing the difference between a judgment and an observation

Counteractive Measure: Ask students to observe what they see without judgment. “What do you see?”

No matter the content, push students daily to explain, consider, observe, ask, and wonder. This explicit thinking about thinking will not only help students with this particular unit, but also make it easier for them to apply lessons from this unit to the next unit, or to another class.

Heavy Lifting: The Exercise of Critical Thinking was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Slide Doctor is a post series where crowded, lackluster, or otherwise ornery slides are transformed into beautiful, effective ones. Have slides you need help with? Submit your question and slides to the Slide Doctor at hello@peardeck.com with the Subject Line: Slide Doctor!

Dear Slide Doctor,

A few semesters back, I made a presentation on 1984 by George Orwell for my English class. I want to transform it into an interactive Deck, but I’m not sure where to start. Can you help me turn my static slides into active ones?

Sincerely,
Asking for Active Advice

Dear Asking,

You’re off to a great start, even if you don’t know it yet — you’re asking a question. The number one, most important, unforgettable, stitch-it-on-a-throw-pillow tip to remember is: ask, don’t tell.

Let the Slide Doctor expand on this a little. The temptation as teachers is to give your students all the information, isn’t it? After all, you know the answers; you’ve got the study guide right there in your hand. But for an effective active learning experience, students need to examine their ideas and learn from each other, dear reader, not just from you.

Chances are, you already know how to add interactivity to your Slides — just fire up the Pear Deck Add-on in Google Slides, and the tools are right there at your fingertips. All you have to do is click the question type you’d like to add to the current Slide.

But physically adding the questions is learning the steps, but not the dance. Let’s take some of your Slides for a spin, flip them around, and let your students take the lead.

Don’t Be A Drag (Just Use Draggables)

Here’s your Slide about Mr. Parsons from Chapter 2. Now, instead of just memorizing the information, ask yourself: what do I want my students to learn from this? Use this opportunity to pick out the point. The important thing is that they know what Mr. Parsons contributes to the Party, yes?

So rather than telling your students what personal peculiarities Parsons presents to the Party, ask, and let them tell you. A Draggable Slide is a great type to use here, but Multiple Choice, Text, or even Drawing could all work — the Slide Doctor would never dream of being prescriptive. Just make sure you mix up your methods so you aren’t over-using one question type.

Draw It Out

This Slide, about the coins used in Oceania, gives some solid insight into what the Party thinks is important. But, once again, let’s find out what the students know rather than what you do.

Ah, the perfect place for a Drawing Slide! This gives students a chance to be creative and asks them to, ahem, draw on the knowledge they’ve retained from the reading. Don’t forget to use the Dashboard to showcase especially exemplary answers to the class.

Meaningful Multiples

The pernicious propaganda of the Party is put forth on this Slide, but are all these bullet points necessary? Or is there a better way to get students discussing the concept, possibly even before they know the word propaganda?

This is a job for the Multiple Choice slide, and it doesn’t have to be used in the traditional one-correct-answer way. By offering multiple “correct” choices, students have an opportunity to discuss the different pieces of textual evidence, and describe for themselves how the Party treats facts. Once they’ve described what the Party is doing, this is an excellent time to introduce and discuss the word propaganda — filling in a word they need for a concept they understand, rather than asking them to memorize a word and its definition.

Teachable Text

Of course, sometimes a topic calls for more in-depth discussion than can be easily achieved through a Draggable or Multiple Choice Slide. This is a terrific time to toss in a Text Slide, so students can give a longer, more thoughtful response. In this case, the point you are driving home is that children are turned into tools of the Party from a young age. Rather than clutter the slide with lots of pieces of information, let’s try to narrow in on one that will help students see the whole picture.

Understanding this one piece makes the picture become clear. Parents fear their children because their children turn them in; ergo, children have been made loyal to the Party over their own families. You’ve just asked students to summarize the salient point of Chapter 2, and you only had to ask one question. The Slide Doctor, as you may recall, adores efficiency.

On that efficient note, when you’re introducing interactivity to your Deck, remember a few simple rules:

• Ask, don’t tell
• Pick out the point
• Mix up your methods

And don’t forget, you can always add a question on the fly as you’re presenting! With these tips in mind, Asking, you’ll be well on your way to an engaged and enthused class before you know it.

Have slides you need help with? Submit your question and slides to the Slide Doctor at hello@peardeck.com with the Subject Line: Slide Doctor!

Dear Slide Doctor: Interactive Inquiry! was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The beginning of the school year is a critical time for setting the emotional tone of your classroom and your school community. Emotions run high at this time of year; there’s excitement, fear, anxiety. The ways in which you invite, receive, and honor these different emotions will communicate a lot to students and will shape the way they act. They will pick up on unsaid cues as much as explicit instructions; ignoring emotions is a strong statement in of itself.

Sharing emotions honestly is a tremendously scary thing to do, even in close relationships, and it’s even scarier in a classroom of peers who may prey on a moment of vulnerability. Building a learning environment that feels safe and open takes a lot of hard, intentional work. One of the hardest things about that work is being able to stay present through moments of emotional intensity. When a student is upset, our reaction can be to try to shut it down; we worry it will get out of control or will upset other students. We may tell a student to stop crying, to calm down, to go to the office. It’s a reasonable reaction. We are responsible for all the students in the room and we want to ensure their safety; we want to ensure they have a chance to learn and that their opportunities aren’t limited by the emotions of another students. It’s a super tough spot to be in.

The risk in shutting down the emotion is that we tell students their feelings don’t matter. Who you are does not matter. What you are going through at home doesn’t matter. You are here to learn this content and that’s all that matters. To a degree, it makes sense. We are trying to teach our students certain content. We can’t have a therapy session every day. But by asking students not to bring certain parts of themselves to school, we subtly tell them we don’t care. Over time, if they don’t think we care, why should they care? Why should they care about doing their work? About respecting their peers or us? About coming at all? By trying to stay focused on the school work we make it harder over time to do just that. Instead of a joyful learning community, we have more students who feel disenfranchised and apathetic and that school is not the place for them. On the contrary, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “…a sense of connectedness improves students’ grades and test scores as well as their lifelong health.” (Loving Learning: How Progressive Education Can Save America’s Schools. Tom Little, and Katherine Ellison. W. W. Norton & company, New York London, 2015)

How to start

1. Practice slowing down in the face of emotions
2. Invite emotions into the classroom, don’t shun them
3. Help students learn to identify their emotional state

Practice slowing down in the face of emotions
We want to get to a point where our response to emotion is slow down and be present rather than react and shut down

The first step in building a learning environment that is safe for different emotional states is to stay open and compassionate in the midst of emotion. Since emotional reactions can be so scary, we easily have our own flight reactions. Instead, breath. Tune in. Ask yourself, “what must be happening for this child that they are acting this way?” Stay away from words and reactions that could shame the student.

Instead of “stop crying,” identify the student’s emotion and show them you aren’t angry with them for it. “You seem really upset right now. That’s ok.” Then try to give them space to experience their emotion without shutting them down. “Why don’t you sit in the reading corner and write or draw about what happened.” Asking them to stop feeling their emotion will not lead to a productive class for them and it will probably impact other students as well. Instead, give the student tools to process their emotion.

Invite Emotions into the Classroom
We all have bad days and good days. What we need to do as a learning community is support each other through those different kinds of days.

A next step beyond not shutting down in the face of emotions is to actively invite them in. Let students know — “in this classroom, you bring your whole self. It’s impossible to check those emotions at the door; of course you bring them in here.”

Sit in a circle. Let students look each other in the eyes. Ask “what do you want to learn this year?” Go around the circle; give each student a chance to answer. Then go around again — “what are you worried about?” Then again — “what would make this a safe, open learning community this year?” Write down their ideas. Ask, “can we all agree to these as guidelines for the year?”

As a high school teacher, I was also in charge of the drama club. Each day before rehearsal began, we started in a circle and had an emotional check-in. Sometimes I felt irritated by the complaining students did about homework or little grievances. But by the end of check-in students were generally ready to put their energy into the play. Over time, they also built up a trust with each other and with me. They knew it was ok to be themselves and to be vulnerable, which also meant they were freer to be creative on the stage. Because we invited emotions and vulnerability into the room, they were able to become better performers.

Help Students Learn to Identify their Emotions
Now that you’ve made it clear that emotions are a normal part of each day, you have to live up to that invitation. Students will have different levels of fluency with their emotional states and it’s important to recognize that while emotions are welcomed in the classroom, that doesn’t mean it’s ok to let an emotional outburst cause harm to someone else.

Help students practice identification every day:

• Ask them to write down how they are feeling at the beginning of each class.
• Ask them to identify the things that are contributing to their emotional state
• Have a jar on your desk — tell students if there’s anything they want you to know about how they’re doing today, they can put it in that jar.

What to do with big emotions:

• Set guidelines ahead of time.
• Let them know that anger happens; it’s ok to feel angry. But we all have to agree that hurting someone else is not ok. If you are feeling angry, it’s your responsibility to identify it and let me know.
• Have a designated spot in the room; if a student needs a break, they can go there. This spot should be a place of peace and calm. It should not be a spot for students to get on a device; flitting through social media or playing a video game is not likely to help calm the overwhelming emotions. Instead, provide paper and pencils. Students can write out how they are feeling, or draw it. They can read a book. You can have headphones and calming music.

As you create the culture of your classroom, remember to invite emotions in as an inevitable and dynamic part of the learning environment. By planning for and discussing them intentionally, you can nurture a learning environment that accepts and embraces students as they are.

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about student emotions and it certainly won’t be the last. You can catch up on our previous blog series on classroom emotions over here. And, if you’re a school or district Pear Deck subscriber, don’t miss this month’s Resource Roundup filled with even more social-emotional learning resources!

Setting the Emotional Tone of Your Classroom was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last Peartember we released the very first version of Pear Deck for Google Slides™. Since then teachers around the world have used Pear Deck for Google Slides to engage millions of students. The result of combining the power of Pear Deck with the design tools was instant love story, and we’ve heard that it made using Pear Deck faster, easier, and more fun — especially for teachers new to Pear Deck.

Today we’re making this perfect pair even better. We’re excited to introduce the Pear Deck Power-up! The Power-up is a free Google Chrome extension. Installing it ensures that your videos, animations, and GIFs are embedded on your slides and play at full resolution on the projector and student devices — exactly the way they should!

Want to show a video about the Mars Rover? Do it. Need to carefully layer in information on a slide to reduce information overload? Now you can. Found a perfect GIF of a plant emerging from its seed? Now’s the time to power-up!

Get Ready to Power Up

Install the Power-up from the Chrome Web Store from the device you use in class. After you authorize and install, it automagically works! Now when you present with Pear Deck the Power-up your videos, animations, and gifs will display on the projector and student devices.

Here are three fun ways to use the Power-up in class.

Add a video followed by a slide with a reflection or discussion question.

Use animations to reveal or emphasize specific information.

Have fun with GIFs! Try adding a GIF and having students interact using a Draggable slide.

A WORD TO THE WISE

Powering up is pretty cool, but rest assured that your Pear Deck for Google Slides presentations will work exactly the way they always have even if you don’t install it. That means the interactivity and student engagement you know and love will work just as it always has; no animations needed.

There’s a strong case to be made about avoiding information overload. As our own Slide Doctor advises us, visual content should be a delightful and helpful counterpart to your valuable lesson! So keep it simple and easy to scan, and keep those cat GIFs to a minimum!

Get the Power-up

Using Videos, Animations, and GIFs? Get Ready to Power Up! was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introducing Google’s Be Internet Awesome 2.0 with Interactive Slides Powered by Pear Deck

An engaging way to help kids be safe, more confident explorers of the online world.

If you teach with Pear Deck you know how we feel about digital citizenship — it’s absolutely critical that kids learn to safely navigate the online world. As a company, our mission is to help teachers engage students every day. We believe in the promise of technology to achieve that mission, but we also talk about the inherent risks of the online world and are deeply concerned about the ways in which our lives are impacted by the ubiquity of digital technologies.

Over the past few years we’ve seen a push for schools to teach good digital citizenship, which is great. But we’ve also seen schools struggle to find comprehensive, trustworthy, and engaging content that doesn’t cost a fortune. We’ve even seen teachers dedicate their own time (those precious summer days!) to creating digital citizenship curriculum with Pear Deck slides that they can use in class. There has to be a better way to give kids access to this important information, right?

Introducing Be Internet Awesome

Google’s Be Internet Awesome is a free digital citizenship curriculum, developed in collaboration with educators and online safety experts like the Family Online Safety Institute, the Internet Keep Safe Coalition and ConnectSafely. We were excited to learn about Be Internet Awesome at ISTE 2017 and cheered as the team behind it developed an increasingly comprehensive set of resources for educators, parents, and kids.

The curriculum is geared to kids in elementary and middle school and includes fun and easy games, vocabulary lists, and activities designed to teach the basics like responsible online communication, keeping personal information private and safe, discerning between what’s real and fake, being kind, and preventing online bullying. Recognizing the value of this content, ISTE awarded Be Internet Awesome its Seal of Alignment for Readiness.

Given Pear Deck’s commitment to digital literacy and the quality of this content, we were thrilled when Google invited us to create a set of custom, interactive decks for Be Internet Awesome. 🎉 🍐🎉

Teach Be Internet Awesome with Pear Deck Slides

Today we’re excited to be part of Google’s release of Be Internet Awesome 2.0, featuring 19 ready-to-teach Pear Deck presentations designed to accompany every lesson!

Pear Deck slides add a new level of engagement to Be Internet Awesome, making it even easier for educators to integrate dig cit content into their lesson plans. Designed to work in the classroom, each bite-sized lesson provides teachers with a simple way to introduce a concept related to digital literacy, guide students through related activities and games, and conduct quick formative assessments to make sure everyone is learning. These decks give educators the tools they need to lead the classroom conversation while ensuring that every student in class can participate equally and with confidence. For admins, completing the Be Internet Awesome curriculum through Pear Deck gives you a record of which teachers and classes have engaged with this important material.

We’re excited to be part of Google’s Be Internet Awesome and to help bring these lessons to classrooms all over the world. You can check out the full curriculum on the Be Internet Awesome official website.

When you’re ready, getting started is easy:

1. Make sure you have the Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on
2. Make copies of the Pear Deck interactive presentations
3. Present with Pear Deck

It’s that simple!

Helping kids be safe, more confident explorers of the online world. That’s the mission of Google’s Be Internet Awesome curriculum and it’s a mission we can get behind. Our kids will be spending more and more time on the internet as they grow. It’s important that they’re equipped to avoid the dangers and encouraged to use their time as wisely as possible. Working with Google’s Be Internet Awesome is one piece of our commitment to helping you teach students these critical skills. Thank you for helping students #BeInternetAwesome!

Learn more about Google’s Be Internet Awesome curriculum

Every Kid Can #BeInternetAwesome was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How to Avoid Undermining the Year

The following article was chockfull of so much good information that we’re reposting it this year! Written by Pear Deck’s Chief Educator, Michal Eynon-Lynch.

As summer vacation draws us in like a verdant oasis, it’s a challenge to enjoy the last phase of the school year journey. But it’s a challenge we should take on! If we run too fast into those carefree days, we can inadvertently undermine the great accomplishments of the year.

Take a Pause

Before all the pizza parties and ice cream socials, take some time to reflect and help students honor all they have learned. The end of the school year is a fantastic opportunity to plan a “rites of passage” moment.

Rites of Passage Moment

A rite of passage is a time when we acknowledge a person’s growth and the challenges they’ve faced. It’s a time for the community to say, “you’re ready for the next thing.” An obvious rite of passage in a person’s K-12 career is the high school graduation. “You’re ready to be an adult,” we say, though sometimes I think these ceremonies fall short of that intended meaning.

But there are other opportunities for smaller passage rites. Even second graders or sophomores, though they aren’t moving to a new school or completing their degree, need space to reflect on and honor their year. When we give weight to end-of-year ceremonies we also give meaning to the year itself. It wasn’t just a hard slog for no reason; it was an important year full of adventures, challenges, and growth.

Simple Ways to Honor the Year

These are just a few ideas about how to take pause, honor the year, and help some of the key learnings sink in and take root. You can easily do one of these ceremonies in a single class period.

Circle Time

It’s amazing what can happen when you invite students’ emotions into the room. Gather students together in a circle and ask them their biggest challenges from the year. Ask them the most important thing they’ll take with them.

Tips for Getting the Most out of this Activity:

1. Set ground rules. For example, pick out a nice stone. Only the student holding the stone can speak. Talk to students about vulnerability. This circle is a space where it’s safe to share emotions without fear of ridicule. This is a listening circle. Listen thoughtfully to one another.
2. Give a moment of silence between each student. This gives everyone a chance to settle their minds. It also allows the next speaker to gather his or her thoughts.

Fire Circle

Of course making a campfire can be difficult in a school setting, but if you have a way, I highly recommend it.

1. Ask students to reflect on what they want to “give away” from the year. What’s something you don’t need from this year — maybe an emotion, a bad habit, or memory that doesn’t bring joy to your life. What can you let go of?
2. Ask them to write the thought down on a small piece of paper.
3. Have everyone gather in a circle around the fire. One at a time they can crumple up the paper and throw it in. You can give them the option to call out what they are throwing in or to keep it private. Prompt them to think about the moment they throw in the paper as them letting go of this negative weight. It’s gone. Done.
4. You can then ask them to do the same thing for something they want to keep.
   Write this down but instead of throwing it in the fire, have students fold up carefully, and put it in their pockets.
5. Finally, follow steps 1–3 again, but ask them to consider something they hope for next year. This time they’ll throw the paper in the fire again, but the focus is not on burning it up. Instead, ask them to think about sending this hope out into the world as a wish.

Silent Reflection or Guided Meditation

1. Ask students to get comfortable and close their eyes.
2. Walk them through the year — describe the different major milestones of the year and the projects they accomplished. Ask them to reflect at each point (“think about the project you did on water quality,” etc).
3. After you complete the full year, ask students to gather in a circle and share their experience. For example, “What did you think of that exercise?” or “share something you had forgotten about, and something you are proud of.”
4. Give students time to reflect on the things they remember. Have them write down the different things on separate pieces of paper, or maybe draw pictures of the things they want to remember and are proud of. Alternatively, let students take a quiet walk around the grounds and find items in nature that represent what they are proud of.
5. After they have drawn, written, or collected items, give them a square piece of cloth. They can place their drawings or items in the cloth and wrap it up in a bundle to take home.

As our students move from year to year of compulsory schooling, it’s real easy for them to feel completely removed from the benefits of 12 years of formal education. Since they start so young and never have a choice, it can feel just like something they are forced to do with no real purpose or joy. We can help them step back, become aware of their educational journey, and find a comforting agency in the process.

Simple Ways to Honor the Year was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chief Educator, Michal Eynon-Lynch shares quick tips and ideas for making the most out of the last days of the semester.

Believe it or not, the end of the school year is upon us! It’s the perfect time to take a moment with your students and help them reflect on all the amazing, brain-stretching, resilience-building, learning and growth they’ve achieved. Pear Deck is perfect this! Here are 20 inspiring ideas to close out the year!

Rev Up Review Time

Test review can be a real bear. There’s always a tension between making it fun but also useful. How do we help students make lasting connections rather than cram and forget? Here are some fun but impactful ways to use Pear Deck for review.

1. Make It Fun With Flashcard Factory

When it’s time to review terms before a final test, load them up into Flashcard Factory. Students will have a blast creating flashcards together and, even better, retain and recall those terms come test time.

2. Play Pear Deck Jeopardy

Use Pear Deck to run your Jeopardy Review game. I love the way our Coach Stacey Roshan tweaks the Jeopardy process to make sure students get rewarded for the right answer not just speed and helps them follow-up after the game with reflections and corrections.

3. Math Sketchpad — Watch Students Solve Problems.

When students are preparing for a test, it’s helpful to see their thought processes and identify any misconceptions. Set up a Pear Deck Drawing Slide to let students think through and write out the problem. On your Teacher Dashboard, you can watch their work in real-time, observe their thinking and see if, and when, it goes of track.

4. Know Thyself: ID Areas for Review

Make a slide that lists the different topics that will be on the test. Have students indicate (by circling, dragging dots, or typing) the areas where they think they need the most review. You can then break into groups based on their selections. This helps students reflect on their own knowledge and take an active role in preparing for the exam.

5. Write It Out

When your test requires short answer or essay responses, students often need practice constructing a coherent argument or summary. Use the Pear Deck Text Response to let students practice. Display exemplars and common mistakes on the board to workshop as a group. After class, you can leave comments in the Takeaways and give each student more detailed feedback.

6. Mind Map Big Concepts

Use the Pear Deck Mind Map Template or a Drawing Slide to let students map out connections between key ideas. This can be particularly helpful before exams with essay or short answer questions that will require students to synthesize. Here’s a deck to get you started!

Essential End-of-Year Reflections

The end of the year can zip by in a flash; with all the tests, fun events, and final projects, students can be halfway through a cannonball before you realize they’re gone. Help students tie a little bow on the year and take their biggest lessons with them into the future.

7. My three most important takeaways from this year…

Ask students to reflect on the major takeaways from your class or the year.

8. When I start school next year, I hope I remember…

What’s a lesson students want to take with them and remember next year?

9. If I could go back to the beginning of the year, I would tell myself…

Ask students to reflect back to the beginning of the year and think about something they wish they knew back then. This can help them realize a way they’ve matured or identify an anxiety that turned out to be unnecessary.

10. Over the summer, I’m going to…

Ask students to make a goal for the summer. This can help students be intentional about their time. Maybe they want to read 10 books, or earn $1000. Maybe they want to learn how to cook. Maybe this is a student who pushes herself really hard all the time and what she most needs to hold herself to is relaxing.

11. Create a Digital Year Book

Create a Deck with each month of the school year on a Drawing slide. Walk through it with students and ask them to write or illustrate a favorite memory from that month. Share that Takeaway with the students’ parents. Don’t have time to do all 12 months? Shorten this one to just the beginning, middle and end of class.

Power Up Projects and Presentations

When it’s time for end-of-the-year projects and presentations, Pear Deck can help introduce the project and let students engage each other in their work.

12. Have students present with Pear Deck

Students can create their own Pear Deck lesson to show their ideas and get their peers engaged. It works for all ages! Behold! Here are kindergarteners presenting. It’s adorable.

13. Create a student-paced deck as a research guide

When you want to guide students through researching some specific sites, you can set up a series of Web Slides and Text Slides. Set the Deck to Student-Paced Mode and let students explore the embedded web sites. On the Text Slides, they’ll be able to take notes or respond to your specific prompts about what they should be looking for.

14. Introduce capstone projects with embedded Google Docs

When you have a big project to introduce, you can use Pear Deck to show students the details and solicit questions. For example, use a Web Slide to embed a Google Doc with the project rubric. Students will be able to read through it. On subsequent slides, ask for questions and checks-for-understanding about the project.

End of the Year Logistics

There are plenty of things to wrap up at the end of the year. Here are ways you can use Pear Deck during your Homeroom time. Create one Deck for the whole school to use and collect all the important information in one spot.

15. Register for classes next year

During Homeroom or meetings with guidance counselors, let students indicate their choices for the following year. You can export the answers to a spreadsheet and sort as necessary. If you already have a site where students register, embed it in a Web Slide. That way you can walk students through the process with some explanation slides, and then let them register without having to send them off to a new URL.

16. Order Yearbooks

Use Pear Deck to let students submit order for end of the year items and activities. You can make it student-paced so they can work through the different choices at their own speed.

17. Nominatations

Set up a Pear Deck to let students nominate each other for end-of-the-year yearbook awards.

18. Vote for Stuff

Set up Multiple Choice questions to let students vote on awards to give, student body candidates, and end-of-the-year activities

19. Teacher Evaluations

Put teacher evaluation questions into a Pear Deck and let students give feedback to teachers.

20. Staff Meeting

Finally, if your or your administrator need to get your whole staff on the same page, present through Pear Deck. You’ll be able to engage staff members in dialogue, hear from those who don’t usually share their opinions, and model great teaching strategies.

That’s all folks! Let’s make the most out of these last classroom moments!

Keep Those Kids Engaged: 20 Ideas for the End of the Year was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Yesterday our friend, Kyle Pace, guest hosted our monthly #PearDeckChat in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week. The discussion was so rich (no surprise there) that we wanted to make sure nobody missed the highlights, even if you missed the chat!

Read on to see how educators just like you are building community with their students, showing appreciation to their fellow teachers and more!

Thinking back to when you were in school, what were specific ways your teachers made you feel a sense of belonging and that you were important?

Nathan Perry @n8than_thomas
One of my high school teachers allowed me to create my own semester-long assignment which I eventually submitted and displayed to the school board.

Kristin Kochheiser @mrskochheiser
Ts often knew something that I enjoyed doing outside of school and asked me about it (music, writing, traveling, etc). They also knew how to say and spell my name…a little thing. :)

Tori Cameron @STEAMuptheClsrm
Morning meeting, talking to me about my interests, coming to birthday parties and sporting games!

What are your favorite ways to build community with your students?

Kara Guiff @KaraGuiff
Give Ss a part of the room to decorate with what they like — posters, etc. (school appropriate of course)!

Amber Marshall @Mrs_Marshall261
About me presentations that they present to the class. They always get excited when they see someone who has something in common with them.

Christine Lion-Bailey @clionbailey
We build community with our students by providing them with opportunities to have voice and choice in their school experience. It is through this that students develop pride both in themselves and their peers.

What are ways education systems can better meet the needs of the whole child?

Andrea Cook @acooktweet
Take care of Maslow’s by creating a relationship with the child, the family, and the community the child lives in. Home visits is a good start

Angela Dandridge @4XSoccermom
We could work on meeting them where they are and helping them get to their next level. Positive home visits, building family connections, helping families understand how they can jump in and lend a hand in schools or at home.

Kristin Kochheiser @mrskochheiser
Start with the student first; stop evaluating based on test scores and begin celebrating student growth through authentic work and student expression. Help Ss become innovators, creators. Promote student voice & choice.

What kinds of partnership strategies work best in bridging the home/school connection with parents?

Lindsey Petlak @LindseyPetlak
Recognize that your kiddos are their kiddos & their most precious asset — even if the Ps don’t act that way. Meet Ps where they are & understand reasons they may have fixed mindset scour school. Find a way to connect with them, no matter how difficult.

Heather Storey @storeyh21
Transparency. I contact home before big tests or projects, send home study guide keys via email, send an email or call with results of class projects or presentations to celebrate!

Robyn LaTorre @STEMseeker
Having students email their parents/guardians every two weeks (cc’ing you of course) about how they’ve performed, give some goals and some accomplishments, and some things they need to work on

Kyle Anderson @AndersonEdTech
If you do #PBL assessments, having parents come to serve as judges is a great way to get them involved

What about during the summer? Are there things that you all do to bridge that home/school connection then?

Amber Marshall @Mrs_Marshall261
Keeping your Google Classroom open during the summer to have kids post what they are doing, show them what you’re up to, give them challenges, etc.

What is your favorite way to show appreciation to a teacher?

Kara Guiff @KaraGuiff
Offer to make copies for them, offer to help out in their class during my prep, put notes of appreciation on their doors (anonymous).

Eric De La Rosa @EricDe_La_Rosa
We bring in a wellness company and Each teacher gets a 15 minute massage if they wish during their lunch break!

If you enjoyed the highlights from last night’s chat, you can catch up on the whole discussion by searching #PearDeckChat on Twitter. We hope you’ll join us for next month’s edition! To keep up on all the latest chats and giveaways, follow us @PearDeck!

#PearDeckChat: Building Better Communities was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today’s post is a guest blog by friend of Pear Deck, Kyle Pace.

This time of year gets me thinking about Valentine’s Day. Weird, right? It may seem like a stretch, but as we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week, I can’t help but think of Valentine’s Day. Even if you’re not a hopeless romantic, you can surely agree that the sentiment behind Valentine’s Day — letting someone know that they’re loved — is philosophically good. Yet for me, that big day of hearts and flowers in February has one inherent flaw: showing love and appreciation really shouldn’t be limited to just one day! What if we took the time to let our loved ones know how we feel throughout the year? The same is true for our teachers.

Being a teacher can be a tough calling. I was raised by a teacher, then I became a teacher. It means more and more constantly added to your plate, working well beyond normal working hours, and often participating in PD on your own time. It can be overwhelming, emotionally taxing, and just plain hard. We need to make sure we remind each other of all the great things about being a teacher, and to those outside of education: make sure you let a teacher know how much you appreciate them all year!

I’m an educator, but I’m also a parent, so I live on both the giving and receiving ends of this issue. Here’s my handy guide to showing appreciation.

Random Acts of Kindness & “Keepers”

I am a big proponent of random acts of kindness. I don’t do it as often as I’d like, but surprising someone with a gesture or note of thanks is my favorite way to show appreciation. A simple message of encouragement can make a big difference in someone’s day. I have a folder in my email called “Keepers”. It’s where I keep those emails of encouragement, compliments, and other feel-good messages. Reading them can really come in handy on a hard day. Those are the kind of positivity bursts that can change the course of an otherwise rough day for the better.

Admins Can Lead the Way

Educational leaders ought to take up this mantle as well. District and school leaders need to make sure teachers know they are appreciated and valued because school morale starts at the top. There are lots of creative ways to do this! It can be something formal like a special breakfast at a staff meeting, or just making a run to the coffee shop (or equivalent) to grab everybody their favorite drink and deliver them during the school day. Heck, it can be as simple as passing out a jeans coupon! Whatever the gesture, letting teachers know that you see their work and appreciate them for it goes a long way.

Parents: Go Beyond the Homeroom

When parents make a concerted effort to show our kids’ teachers they’re appreciated beyond just the first week of May it’s really special. I mean, some of these teachers spend more hours a day with our kids than we do! Remember: even if your child is still in elementary school, they have more than one teacher. Beyond the teacher listed as their “official” teacher, we cannot forget Art, Music, P.E., etc. that also impact our kids’ lives. A show of appreciation doesn’t have to be anything that costs money. A simple handwritten note (or email) can be very meaningful! You never know, your note might just make it into that teacher’s “Keeper” file.

Teachers Can Show Each Other Some Love

Never underestimate the value of lateral shows of appreciation. Teachers, don’t forget that you have a school full of colleagues that need to know they’re appreciated just like you do! Maybe you have a mentor teacher that really helped you get through your first year of teaching; maybe it’s the music teacher who worked tirelessly to pull off that super fun production of “The Three Piggy Opera”, or the brand new teacher down the hall who feels like there isn’t enough coffee in the world? There’s always a colleague close by that could use some appreciation! Get the peer-appreciation rolling and it might just come back full circle!

I hope you’ll take these ideas and run with them! I can’t emphasize enough the importance of making teacher appreciation a year-round observance. It’s something I’m committing to and I hope you’ll join me. Meanwhile, let’s make this Teacher Appreciation Week one for the books. Your note of encouragement may be the thing that turns a teacher’s career around!

Celebrating Teachers All Year Long was originally published in Pear Deck on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.