There was definitely some difficulty in managing Pear
Deck, as the students were unused to the technology. There was also a learning
curve for me as I struggled to show student answers without letting them get
too off track in their answers. However, they seemed to be interested in the
process and with a little more practice, I still think Pear Deck has potential
as a teaching tool.
So, I’m thinking about round two. What is Pear Deck
really good for and what do I need to do to make sure it works smoothly?
Pear Deck is useful for getting the whole class to
respond to a question when you don’t have time for everyone to respond or
students aren’t willing to talk in front of the class. It’s particularly useful
for quickly surveying students’ opinions and doing comprehension checks.
One idea I have is to imbed mini quizzes into my
powerpoint. I’m thinking about the WWII unit I co-planned which centers around
the different ideologies which lead to WWII. One good way to do a comprehension
check without stopping the class to poll each student individually would be to
do a Jeopardy type of project. Give a definition of an ideology then ask
students which one they think it is. For example,
This
ideology embraces advocates a society in which
all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to
their abilities and needs.
Is it A)
Democracy
B)
Pacifism
C)
Communism
This would allow me to do a quick
formative assessment of all the students in a fun, low-stakes way, all without
stopping my powerpoint.
In order to keep students from getting
distracted, I have two ideas. One is practice, practice, practice. If the
routine isn’t new, students are less likely to get distracted by the novelty.
The second idea is to have students close the Chromebooks while I’m talking,
only opening them up to answer polls then closing them while we start
discussion.
I’m not giving up on Pear Deck. I just
think is has too much potential to ignore because of one awkward lesson.
