Pear Deck on Deck!

After having 3 snow days, a weekend and holiday to throw off our instructional schedule, I decided it was important to review the Distributive Property one more time before moving on. Eric Curts provided an interesting way of making review and instruction more interactive by using Pear Deck, a Google Slides Add-on. In my previous blog, I briefly explained how it works and provided the link to Eric Curts' step-by-step directions. This week, I implemented it with my third grade class.

Creating the slides was super simple. However, getting kids connected to the program was very challenging. Our students are set up with Google accounts through the district provided email addresses. These addresses have their first and last names, as well as "stu.jefferson.kyschools.us." Having 3rd graders type this once is a challenge. Yet, in order to get logged in, they had to do it twice. It took over ten minutes to get 5 students logged in. I do not have 1-1 technology for my students, so they were placed into small groups for this activity. Once the login process was complete the instruction went very smooth.

I use a group work structure from Kagan called Numbered Heads Together regularly in my classroom. This structure worked well with the group work and interactivity provided by Pear Deck. Students were given think time, independent solving time, share/coaching time, and waited until the next problem was posted. Because students were taking much different amounts of time to solve, I chose to change the lesson to student-directed after several problems, and walked around to monitor. I was still able to see what answers each group submitted, and looked for students to coach other toward the right answers if others were struggling.

Overall, I would say this lesson was a success. I am not sure if the login struggle was worth the interactivity provided within this lesson. However, I am very interested in giving it another try. Once students get more exposure with typing in those emails addresses, I believe the process could move much quicker.

If you are a 1-1 technology school, I would definitely give this add-on a try. If you have suggestions on how to make the login process easier, I would greatly appreciate some feedback!