PEAR DECK

 The best place to start would be to use the Pear Deck add-on to convert existing PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations to Pear Deck lessons. It's some work up front, but the payoff in student engagement is worth it. Add in a Pear Deck question slide or template to review a concept from a previous lesson, gather student questions or feedback about last night's homework, or introduce today's lesson with a question or problem. During a lesson, pepper in multiple-choice, true/false, and thumbs-up/-down questions, and quickly gauge whether or not you need to reteach a concept. These check-ins can also be used as discussion starters when talking about daily routines, current events, or reactions to class content. At the close of a lesson, see how well your students understood the content with an exit ticket. You can use any type of slide for these, but short-answer or number slides are good open-ended ways to assess understanding. 

As you teach new concepts, be sure to balance the ratio of questions to informational slides. For review lessons, it's OK to lean on objective questions, but students will be more drawn in by the creative components. Premium features, such as draggable responses and drawing slides, are excellent for elementary students and account for a variety of learning preferences. Use the Flashcard Factory feature to get students working in tandem to create a set of classroom flash cards for export to Gimkit. Regardless of the purpose, mix up the question types you're using to keep your lessons lively and fresh. Teachers should also take advantage of built-in and add-on accessibility features in order to provide differentiation and to benefit students with a variety of backgrounds and learning preferences.