The learning science behind Pear Deck
Pear Deck logic model
The Pear Deck Logic Model explains how administrators, teachers, and students use Pear Deck, what they do with it, and the outcomes they can expect to realize. Internally, this logic guides the development of our products, making the connection between key features and desired learning outcomes. For the administrators and teachers who use Pear Deck, the Logic Model helps explain why using Pear Deck results in more effective teaching, what the indicators of success will be, and what should be improved to increase efficacy moving forward.


Digital Promise Certifications
Pear Deck has earned two product certifications from Digital Promise, recognition that is intended to serve as a reliable signal for educators, administrators, and families looking for evidence that edtech products are based in research about learning and support the unique needs of their learners.
Pear Deck supports proven instructional strategies
In building tools and technologies for use in the classroom, we are proactive in our approach to efficacy. We use peer-reviewed research to guide our product design and build into Pear Deck the instructional strategies that are proven to make a positive impact on student learning.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
- The Teacher Dashboard allows teachers to view student responses instantly, giving them real-time insight from formative assessments. This allows them to quickly adapt instruction to meet student needs. For example, the teacher can:
- See students thinking in real-time and allow ample time for processing
- See aggregate responses to get pulse of whole class
- Organize, filter, and manage student responses to see who needs support
- Pear Deck Pop-Up Prompts allow teachers to issue formative assessment on the fly, making it simple to integrate whole-class formative assessment without pre-planning.
ACTIVE LEARNING
- Pear Deck’s pre-made and custom interactive prompts get every student actively engaging with the lesson content.
- When teachers share student responses anonymously with the class via the Pear Deck Teacher Dashboard, they can spark rich discussions. This practice makes space for even the quietest voices in the room to participate, ensures that students actively engage and see their own ideas discussed, and helps students learn from each other.
RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
- Pear Deck pre-made and custom Interactive prompts get every student actively engaging with the lesson content and retrieving information.
- When teachers share student responses anonymously with the class via the Pear Deck Teacher Dashboard, they can spark rich discussions. This practice makes space for even the quietest voices in the room to participate, ensures that students actively engage and see their own ideas discussed, and helps students learn from each other.
- Pop-Up Prompts give teachers a quick method to guide retrieval practice without needing to pre-plan or design a full lesson.
FEEDBACK DRIVEN METACOGNITION
- Feedback is an important element of developing metacognition because feedback helps students understand what they do and don't know and develop critical self-awareness of themselves as thinkers and learners.Using the Teacher Dashboard, teachers can guide students when they feel stuck, correct a misconception, or describe what was great about about a specific response.
- For individual students, Teachers can use the Teacher Feedback tool to give timely and specific guidance and help students develop metacognition.
- When teachers publish Student Takeaways students have an artifact of the lesson and their own responses that students can use for review and study. Teachers can access the Takeaways document to leave feedback, correct mistakes, and prompt further learning.
ACTIVE LEARNING
- The Lock Timer encourages teachers to slow down and allow for different processing time; this helps students know that they still have time to respond and reinforces the premise that their participation is welcome and valued.
- Pear Deck Social-Emotional Learning Templates remind teachers to make space for students' social and emotional needs. The templates are appropriate for any subject or grade-level and show students that it's ok to bring their whole selves to the classroom.
- When a teacher shares student responses with the class, those answers are always projected anonymously. This is critical to ensure that every student feels safe contributing to the class discussion. Teachers can guide students to discuss differing opinions and approaches in a respectful manner, which leads to a more engaged and inclusive learning community.
Deeper Learning
- Practicing critical thinking and complex problem-solving is one of the Deeper Learning Competencies. Pear Deck Critical Thinking Templates remind teachers to make developing critical thinking and complex problem solving a daily practice.
- The interactive response types built into Pear Deck make it easy for teachers to change how students are prompted to answer or process their thoughts. Expressing thoughts different modes is an important way for students to develop effective communication skills, which is also one of the Six Deeper Learning Competencies.
- Pear Deck is designed to help students learn how to learn; when teachers use features such as real-time formative assessments, Pop-Up Prompts, Teacher Feedback, and Student Takeaways, students are given opportunity to reflect on their learning, correct misconceptions, and develop a stronger growth mindset.
Citations
What Educators Are Saying
I dove right into the world of @PearDeck today by sharing a link to student-led independent math practice. I LOVE how user friendly it is & that I'm able to see everyone's work in one place. This one is a new go-to in my instructional toolkit.
– @CBJenSnyder