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Showing posts from February, 2020

Generate Instant Pear Decks

  I’ll keep this short as the video explains most of you. Any new educational technology can be complicated to dig into from scratch as you attempt to align it to learning outcomes.  Well, a new feature that Pear Deck has introduced has taken a giant leap forward to help educators do just that.  Before we jump into the new features, if you are unfamiliar with Pear Deck and why my students and I consider it the #1 EdTech tool that helps their learning, check out the video in the previous blog post.   But if you are more concerned with why you should even dive into Pear Deck or learn about this new AI generation of Pear Deck sessions to a learning target, check out the video below. Like I said, I’m keeping it short so you have time to watch the video. If you have questions, please contact me at mohammam@elmbrookschools.org or the Pear Deck Learning team at support@deck.peardeck.com . Also, check out the amazing Stacey Roshan's video on this update. 

Standards Aligned Portfolios

As we move to skills based standards, many times a traditional test may not be adequate to demonstrate mastery of all standards. Over the past few years, we have been implementing a new state of science standards which incorporate both skills and content. These new state standards were designed with the Next Generation Science Standards as a guide. In our physics course we are targeting 4 different science skills. Planning and carrying out investigations Analyzing and interpreting data Using mathematics and computational thinking Constructing explanations and designing solutions Students are asked to apply each of these practices to specific pieces of content knowledge, Disciplinary Core Ideas. In physics, these are Force and Interactions Energy Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation At the end of a unit, we still have summative assessments that include tests. But this semester, I’m attempting to build in a better understanding of these different practices. So, I am alterin...

Science Pear-actices

Pear Deck has just released a series of Slides Templates related to science and you can get them by clicking here. They can also be accessed from the Pear Deck Sidebar in Google Slides or PowerPoint The slide templates are free to use and edit by all and are a great way to start digging into the NGSS Science Practices. If you are unfamiliar with the Science Practice you can read more about them here. In this post, I’d just like to highlight how some of these slides could be used as another way to bring the science practices into your classroom. Developing and Using Models When students create and use models they are creating representations of phenomenon. Models are a great way for students to communicate ideas beyond simple text explanations. These can take a variety of forms and that’s where some of these different slide interactions can come in. Slides like the Draw an Atom give students an opportunity to practice applying atomic models for different elements. It’s simple for t...