Peardeck: Death Of The Lecture

History classes have a stigma of teachers lecturing at students for hours on end about historical details and dates mostly about dead white guys. History teachers especially those in Urban environments are working to change that but the class as a lecture is something that even I found myself leaning toward. It's just so easy to talk and have students take notes; it is also the fastest way to loose their attention and make them hate the class. With Peardeck I have not taught a lecture in my class since. 

Peardeck has the power to turn a one sided lecture into a two sided conversation no matter the content and here's how. Peardeck turns lectures into a discussion time or an assignment that the teacher can watch as students work. Both images below are links to example presentations I used in my classroom. 

First a peardeck enhanced lecture takes each slide or as many as you would like to turn into a checkpoint for students to see if they are following around or break a topic to them. I've used this in the classroom when starting new content to see what students already know and give then a chance to show me what we just learned during the lecture and using this tool I can show all student responses on the screen completely anonymously. The first time I used the Pear in the class we used it as a game looking at what farmers went through during the great depression out West. Students where paired up, one was responsible for answering the questions on the presentation the other kept track of the points that they were gaining or loosing based on their decisions. I was able to add in little instructional moments as student looked at the benefits of say taking out a loan or deciding where the best farm land was.  

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Another way of using Peardeck is as a in class or homework assignment. In this example I used a Peardeck to explore Mexican repatriation with students. I gathered a bunch of different resources for the students and tasked them with exploring some of the slides in the presentation. We walked through the first couple together but then using student paced mode I was able to give students control over the google slides presentation and I could then watch the progress each student was making and respond to students that I noticed were struggling or missing a concept.  ​

These are just two examples of how I've used Peardeck to transform instruction in my classroom and I continue to look for new and engaging ways for me to place learning in the hands of my student and give them chances to use their voice in the classroom because that is what is important in learning. Students will learn the best when they are active in their learning and instruction instead of passive bystanders and Peardeck is an amazing tool to provide all educators with that opportunity. 

To learn more about peardeck and how to use it check out their website or the google slides add-on to kill your classroom lectures and engage students in a new way!