Pear Deck
What is Pear Deck?
Pear Deck is an interactive technology tool to transform your presentation slides into opportunities for formative assessment and active learning. Functioning as an add-on to Google Slides, you can add various types of questions to any of your existing slides!
Check out this overview video to see what you can do with Pear Deck powered presentations:
Educational developers have emphasized the advantages of formative assessment in the
teaching and learning (Boston, 2002). For instructors, formative assessment can help
them adjust to learners' needs in real time. Classroom response systems (CRS) can
aid instructors to formatively assess student learning efficiently on an ongoing basis
as well as increase student engagement and classroom interaction, and facilitate peer
learning (CTI, 2012).
Using Pear Deck, students respond to questions anonymously by either answering with a statement or choosing the options provided by the professors. The responses are compiled and can be displayed anonymously to the class in real time (Mache, Tan, Shoemaker, & Weiss, 2017).
A 2015 study with Johns Hopkins University and the NYC Department of Education found the following: 65% of students agreed that Pear Deck helped them understand class material better, and 61% of students reported that it increased their interest in class material (Pear Deck, 2018).
Using the content of your presentation, you can ask students any of the following types of questions in Pear Deck:
- Multiple choice - functions like an instant poll of your class
- Numerical response - showing the results on a number line
- Open-ended - allow students to answer questions in their own words
- Draggable & drawable - students can label and draw right on their devices
You can choose from the extensive library of template slides to get your students actively involved with your lesson.
How Can I Use Pear Deck?
Do you have existing slide presentations in PowerPoint or Keynote? Uploading and changing them to Google Slides is easy!
Who's Using Pear Deck at USA?
Many faculty and staff across the campus are using Pear Deck to liven up their presentations!
Here are a few notable examples (this list is being updated regularly):
- Dr. David S. Williams (College of Medicine) recently became an “Inspearational” Educator with Pear Deck because of his extensive use of Pear Deck in classroom and professional development sessions. Contact him at dwillliams@southalabama.edu to learn about Pear Deck or schedule an individual training on the technology.
- Dr. Julie Estis (QEP) uses Pear Deck for training in team-based learning sessions with faculty and with her speech pathology students.
- Dr. Kendrea Garrand (Speech Pathology and Audiology) uses Pear Deck for TBL and non-TBL classes.
- Dr. Lauren Brannan (Leadership and Teacher Education) uses Pear Deck for her reading students in online and campus-based courses.