Pear Deck: Music to My Ears

Imagine being immersed in a learning environment where large groups of students are constantly being monitored for mastery of music literacy concepts.  Kayla Gentry, music teacher at Cox Elementary, is using Pear Deck to achieve this goal. In Mrs. Gentry’s class, third through fifth grade learners have an opportunity to show their understanding of both rhythmic and melodic grade level concepts each time they have a music rotation with her.  

Mrs.  Gentry believes Pear Deck is enhancing her students learning opportunities by providing them with an engaging way to respond to how they read and hear music in her room.   Pear Deck offers 5 interactive question types which allows teachers to ask all learners for their answers, opinions, and ideas. Students are able to answer the question on their own device and for Averi, a 5th grader in Mrs. Gentry’s class, this is one of her favorite features because our teacher can “know what we are struggling on without failing in front of the class.”

From a teacher’s perspective Mrs. Gentry loves that  Pear Deck allows you to display student responses instantly so they can discuss correct answers and misconceptions as a class. Also, Pear Deck saves a copy of each individual student's responses to the teacher’s Google Drive allowing the teacher to monitor individual student progress.  Vincent, a learner in Mrs. Gentry’s music class, likes Pear Deck because “I’m a little shy and Pear Deck allows me to share my answer.”  Another learner from Mrs. Gentry’s class says Pear Deck is a great experience because she likes when the session asks about her individual mood.  “If we aren't having a great day it could affect how we learn.”

Through the use of Pear Deck Mrs. Gentry is empowering her learners to take an active role in their learning experiences while using technology.  Students are able to demonstrate their understanding of music literacy concepts in a variety of ways and use their session take aways to set personal learning goals in music.  Pear Deck has been a transformational tool to help Mrs. Gentry customize her learning environment in ways that support the learning process for her students.

ISTE Standards

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

1a  Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.

1b  Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.

1c  Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

1d  Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.