Back to School: Get Your Crew Ready!

This week is the first installment of our three-part back-to-school series. Follow along as we serve up cargo-loads of helpful resources to prepare you and your school crew to soar this year.

So much can happen in a summer. You lose some crew members, you add new ones. And those who return come to the table with new tools in their tool belt. Everyone is energized and enthusiastic about a fresh start. Everyone is on the same page!

Or are they?

Before launching your crew into another school year, take a pause and invest some quality time into unifying your crew — making sure they have the tools they need, that they know how to use them and, most of all, that everyone truly has the same destination in mind. In his book, The First Days of School, Harry Wong reminds us: “What you do the first days of school will determine your success or failure for the rest of the school year. You will either win or lose your class on the first days of school.” This is every bit as true for school faculty, staff, and administrators as it is for students. Today we’re bringing you resources to help your whole team level up — together!

For administrators

Deliver PD with Pear Deck

Despite all the excitement swirling around back to school, there’s no denying that capturing and maintaining the attention of a roomful of energized teachers can be a daunting task. Especially when most of them are itching to work in their classrooms rather than sit in a mandatory PD session. And really, who can blame them? But with Pear Deck you can engage your staff the same way they can engage their classes, all while delivering vital information and engaging them in meaningful conversation.

Learn how a school in Maryland is flipping their PD using Pear Deck!

Leverage Team Drive

If your school or district subscribes to Pear Deck Premium, we have an extra collaboration treat for you: Pear Deck works with Google’s Team Drive! Using Team Drive with Pear Deck ensures that every teacher in your school has access to all the Pear Decks being created across grade levels, departments or buildings. This ensures maximum transparency and efficiency in pooling teacher resources and can be a huge help to a teacher who is tentative about getting started with Pear Deck. Plus, when a teacher leaves, the Pear Decks they created remain in the Team Drive for continued access.

If you are a Pear Deck Premium school or district and you do not yet have Pear Deck configured with Team Drive, contact your designated Partnership Manager or Customer Success representative to get set up!

For teachers, technologists, coaches and integrationists

Inspearational Educators!

Sometimes the best classroom inspiration doesn’t come from the top, but from our peers. If you’re a teacher or integrationist who uses Pear Deck, there’s a good chance you’re the kind of educator your peers look to for inspiration. If that sounds a little biased, you’re totally right! We want to celebrate engaging educators like you, and we’re doing it with a brand new Pear Deck Certification!

If you use Pear Deck frequently in class and make student engagement a top priority, and if you like to help or train your colleagues to use Pear Deck in their own classrooms, we think that makes you an Inspearational Educator!

To be certified as an Inspearational Educator and show the world what a Pear Deck wiz you are, head over here to learn and apply for your Inspearational Educator Badge!

How to #ShareThePear

Whether you have an Inspearational Educator badge or not, we think you’re the perfect candidate to tell your colleagues about Pear Deck, and we want to make sure you have the resources you need to get your whole crew on board.

Step 1:
If you’re planning a PD session or an EdCamp, or you’re submitting a proposal to present at an even bigger event, let us know! Simply head over to the www.peardeck.com/sharethepear to tell us a bit more about your event, and we’ll supply you with training resources and more to ensure your event is a success!

Step 2:
Prepare for your presentation with this handy vlog from our Teacher Advocate, Risa Fadenrecht. In this short video, we walk you through some best practices so you can #SharethePear with maximum impact.

Be sure to join us again next week for the second leg of our back-to-school journey. We’ll show you how to map out your best school year yet!

This week’s blog post was written by Pear Deck Teacher Advocate Risa Fadenrecht.