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Let Flexibility Lead To Alignment

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  In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
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Pear Deck & Immersive Reader

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Just today Pear Deck launched a beta integration of Microsoft’s Immersive Reader as a part of student view. This means that students can use the Immersive Reader to increase accessibility to text content present in a Pear Deck Slide.

Pear Deck already has the ability for video and audio content playback to be controlled by students when in Student Paced mode. This option allows learners to launch the Immersive Reader regardless of the presentation mode.

If you are unfamiliar with Immersive Reader, check out the quick overview video I made below detailing the Immersive Reader Extension for Google Chrome. All of the same features are available in the Pear Deck integration.



To launch Immersive Reader from a Pear Deck slide, students simply click on the icon at the bottom right corner of their screen.
The Immersive Reader beta integration is currently available for premium accounts. Teachers just need to go to their settings and turn on the integration.

I look forward to seeing how teachers will be using it in the classroom, but I know it'll be of use for increasing accessibility for many students in the classroom. 

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