An Even More #PerfectPear!
Have your best teaching year with Pear Deck for Google Slides™
Hint: Read all the way to the end for a chance to win Pear Deck for your school!
Fellow teachers, I know you. We’re an optimistic bunch. I’ve heard from many of you that you want to make this your best ever teaching year. Some of you even got together over break and during snow days to develop new plans and skills for how to make it happen. (Shout out to @class_harris and her cohorts!)
Like many of you, I spent the early years of my teaching career thinking “This year is going to be amazing! I can to do EVERYTHING so much better/smarter/cooler this year!” Some years I rocked it, but others found me trying to make too many changes all at once and feeling overwhelmed by new curriculum mandates or drowning in discarded tech tools.
Well this year, we’re here to help you rock it. The key is to keep it simple. We’ve got a recommendation for one small change that will help you have more fun in the classroom and ensure that you engage every single student in your class.
Are you ready? Here it is…
Ask. More. Questions.
Really! It’s that easy.
Asking more questions and giving every student a safe, engaging way to respond changes everything. We promise, just try it. You know those days when your class is wide awake, paying attention, laughing and learning? Let’s have more of those.
In support of that goal and making this year the best ever, we’ve revamped Pear Deck for Google Slides. Today we’re releasing a beautifully-designed new user interface and a library of templates that will let you transform any lesson into an opportunity to collaborate as a class.
Here’s how it works:
- Open a new or existing Google Slides File
- Open the Pear Deck Sidebar from the Add-on Menu
(Don’t see it? Install the Add-on if you haven’t already)
- From the Sidebar, drop formative assessments and activity templates into your lesson or create interactive questions
- Present with Pear Deck and watch your class transform
The New Slide Library
Our team of educators created the library of templates to support learning objectives typically found at the beginning, middle and end of a class. Think: bell ringers, checks for understanding, exit tickets, and more. Simply drop in one of these templates for instant engagement and watch your class transform.
The library features more than a dozen ready-to-go templates. While I won’t go into all of them, here are just three of my favorites from each section.
Beginning of Class
Bell Ringer
You probably already know that bell ringers are a simple way to get students focused after a lesson transition or a passing period. Start by getting them thinking about the assignment they completed last night. Students can reflect on the content (formative assessment) or think metacognitively about a breakthrough or struggle they may have had (“I didn’t learn anything because…”) and write down their thoughts.
During Class
Diagrams
With this template, you can ask students to label a diagram. Not studying bees? All you need to do is replace the background image of the bees with an image relevant to your lesson. You can move the numbered boxes around to the correspond with elements you want your students to label. You can even add more boxes if needed! Students will be able to draw or type in the boxes to label the diagram and you’ll see their responses in real-time via the teacher dashboard.
End of Class
Explain the Lesson
Before students leave, you want to make sure the lesson sticks. One of the best ways is to have students put the learning in their own words or better yet, explain it to someone else. Select this template and you’re all set. Students will imagine they have to bring an absent friend up-to-speed. Students can type their summary and in-so-doing, synthesize their learning.
There’s so much more for you to discover in the Sidebar and the Library. We can’t wait to see what you do with all these new ways to engage your class!
So this year, let’s take a sustainable approach to self-improvement (and student improvement!). Challenge yourself to make a small change with a big impact — ask more questions. If you use one of these templates with your class each day, week by week you’ll be feeling more confident and engaging your students more and more each day! And the best part is, you’ll be giving your students safe spaces to engage and succeed and building their confidence, too.
Love Pear Deck?
Would you like to see every teacher and student at your school have access? Enter to win 6-months of Premium Access for your school!
This week’s blog post was written by Risa Fadenrecht, Pear Deck’s Teacher Advocate & Trainer.
