Pear Deck: Getting Started
Gaining Access: Make sure you click "Make a copy." You will need to be logged in to google drive for this to work. Make sure to click "Instructor-paced activity"
​Presenting: For the best experience you will need to use two screens. One to present to the students, and one that only the teacher can see. ​
Teacher Screen: Access the “teacher dashboard” on your computer.
Presentation Screen: If you are in class together, present the lesson to your smartboard. If you want to go over the answers, just do a mouse click on the presentation (not the teacher dashboard)
Have students join using: joinpd.com or app.peardeck.com/join ​
For more detailed info, visit the Pear Deck help site: here​​
Pear Deck: Introduction for students
Student Intro: If your students have never done Pear Deck before, this is fun introduction to the types of questions as well as the drawing tools.
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Pear Deck: Tech Tips
Refresh Refresh Refresh: If a student's work is not showing up on your teacher dashboard, ask them to click refresh. Often this fixes the issue, but brace yourself for a disappointed (and complaining) student, as they may have to redo that slide.​​​
Pear Deck: Classroom Management Tips
What to do with wait time: If some students are done, but others are still working, here are some options:
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Prior to the lesson, set them up on a second tab that auto grades (like Khan Academy). If you have 10 or so students who are done (and correct), and 10 or so students who are struggling, let the students who are correct go to the second tab and work independently. Then have the other 10 students get off the computer and regroup with you. This allows you time and space to do a quick intervention (in front of the whiteboard, or on the carpet area, etc).
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Call out the students that have the problem correct and have them stand up. Then tell them to find someone who to help.
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If they are new to Pear Deck, and they are on drawing slide, let them doodle after you have confirmed that their answer is correct.
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For some answers, I will have anyone who is ready to be checked line up by my monitor. This gives them an opportunity to get out of their seat, and me an opportunity to say "good job" you are right! Alternatively, I can show them their answer on my teacher monitor and give them some advice about how to solve the problem.
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You don't need to have students show their work on their Pear Deck. Sometimes I have students bring me their math journals, and if they have modeled how to solve problem in some way, I will then check their answer on the teacher dashboard. This makes "showing their work" as a step...but doesn't allow the tech to slow them down. ​​
Pear Deck: The Method to the Madness
It is really hard to check 20+ students in a live "instructor paced" pear deck lesson.​
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We try to make everything big enough, so that you can see all answers on the "grid layout", as it is really hard to scroll up and down (repeatedly) to see all student answers using the "list layout". Personally, it is easier to for me when I set it to "Sort by: Student".​​
​The drag and drop questions have have huge numbers/symbols, which hopefully will allow teachers to give feedback quickly. There is usually an extra box where student can put any extra numbers or symbols. This is able to indicate to the teacher that they are ready to be checked. ​​​
We often instruct students to use the line tool, as the pencil tool can be chaos. ​And once you've finally gotten them to use the line tool (as opposed to the pencil tool), they are going to want to try all the colors! If you have trouble with vision, I recommend that you have them scale the size of the line to make it thicker, and that they only use black or red. ​​​​
The text tool is your friend. You are welcome to use the pencil tool, but if you thought you had trouble reading student's handwriting before... Buckle up!​​​ The text boxes do take some getting use to, and I almost always have them scale up to the largest sized font so I can see their student answers on the "grid layout".
Pear Deck: Teaching Virtually
Teachers: If you are teaching virtually (not in person) the students will need to be in a meet (google meet, teams meet, zoom meet, etc). You will need to share your presentation tab within the meeting.
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Students: During the meet, the students will log into both the meet, and have a second tab that they will log into Pear Deck with. They need to toggle between your presentation tab (presented via the teacher's shared "presentation" in the meet), and their personal student Pear Deck tab. If they do not have an extended monitor set up, you will need to frequently remind them what tab to be on. If they do have an extended monitor set up, life will be easier for everyone.
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I have found that many students on a single monitor will not toggle between the tabs (even when directed to), which causes them to miss out on part of the lesson. My work-around was to tell them switch tabs and then to imitate what I am doing. And then I would do something random such as: holding 3 fingers up, making the heart symbol, doing the itsy-bitsy spider motion, making my hands moose antlers, etc. It was clear within seconds as to who was not not on the right tab. Side note: This work-around won't work if your students are in a virtual class without their camera on.