Pear Deck is a tool for spicing up classroom presentations. Teachers can add questions and polls to their slides, and students can answer them using their devices. It's a quick way for teachers to check if students are getting the material and adjust the lesson as needed. Pear Deck makes class more interactive and lets students participate in their own way. It's a practical tool to make lessons more engaging.
In my science class I already use fill in the blank notes that I get by printing off my slides. By connecting my slides on the board to Pear Deck, when students log in on their devices they can choose whether they copy notes from the board or from their device. They can also zoom in on images or text that might be too small for them to see on the board. I also include a few formative assessment questions between slides. Because you get a free trial of the pro version for the first 30 days, I often include questions that are along the lines of “circle all of the __” in the picture. Drawing is a pro version perk, so once the pro version expires, I will use mostly text responses. I’ve found that students appreciate the opportunity to follow along with slideshows on their phone, and they think the formative questions are really fun. Because the entire system of using devices in class is based on expectations, I make it clear that if anyone answers a question with a silly or inappropriate answer, then nobody will be allowed to use pear deck and they will ruin it for the whole class.