Pear Practice
Product by GoGuardian
Facts checked: Not yet checked
Our take (not a Learning Standard rating). This label applies to learning-science judgments throughout this overview.
Our take (not a Learning Standard rating)
While Pear Practice has not yet been formally evaluated by The Learning Standard, its reliance on gamified retrieval practice suggests potential for reinforcing previously learned material. It functions best as a supplementary review tool rather than a primary instructional platform, leveraging social learning mechanics to drive engagement.
Pros
- Utilizes gamification to increase student engagement during repetitive retrieval practice.
- Supports a wide variety of K-12 subjects for flexible classroom integration.
- Encourages social learning through collaborative game modes.
- Provides a free, accessible platform for immediate classroom implementation.
Cons
- Heavy reliance on gamification can distract from core learning objectives.
- Lacks explicit direct instruction, making it unsuitable for introducing new concepts.
- Feedback mechanisms are currently unverified for depth and pedagogical value.
- Not yet evaluated by The Learning Standard for long-term knowledge retention.
What Do We Know About Pear Practice?
Pear Practice serves as an effective supplementary tool for reviewing material rather than a primary method for teaching new concepts. Because your child will engage with gamified quizzes and collaborative challenges, this platform relies heavily on retrieval practice to reinforce what they already learned in the classroom. The Learning Standard has not yet formally evaluated Pear Practice, but its design aligns with basic principles of active recall. Gamification elements like points and rewards drive short-term engagement, which can motivate your child to complete practice sets they might otherwise avoid. However, parents should monitor whether the game mechanics overshadow the actual educational content. Your child will benefit most when educators use this tool to identify knowledge gaps rather than as a substitute for direct instruction. The platform covers a broad spectrum of K-12 subjects, making it highly versatile, but its primary utility lies in repeated exposure to factual knowledge. Ensure your child is balancing this play-based review with deeper, focused study sessions that do not rely on digital rewards.
How Does Pear Practice Work?
Pear Practice uses gamified retrieval practice to facilitate active recall and collaborative review among students. Teachers create or select practice sets across various subjects, which are then delivered to students through game-based interfaces. As students answer questions, the platform forces them to retrieve information from memory, a proven learning science technique for strengthening neural pathways. The system incorporates multiplayer modes, transforming isolated drill-and-practice into a social learning experience. Students earn points and progress through game levels based on their accuracy and speed. This external motivation structure is designed to sustain attention during repetitive tasks. While the app does not provide initial direct instruction, it functions as a formative assessment tool, allowing educators to track performance data and identify areas where students struggle. The mechanics prioritize quick recall, making it highly suitable for vocabulary, math facts, and historical dates, though less optimized for complex problem-solving or deep critical thinking.
Strengths and tradeoffs of Pear Practice
The biggest strength of Pear Practice is its ability to make repetitive retrieval practice highly engaging through social gamification, while its biggest weakness is the lack of direct instruction necessary to teach new or complex concepts. Strengths: By employing gamified active recall, the platform successfully lowers the friction of independent practice. Students are often motivated by the interactive, play-based environment, which encourages them to complete more review cycles than they would with traditional worksheets. The collaborative features also tap into social learning theory, using peer dynamics to sustain focus. Weaknesses: Because the platform relies heavily on testing existing knowledge, it cannot replace robust instructional delivery or worked examples. If a student does not already understand a concept, gamified quizzes will only highlight their deficit without guiding them toward mastery. Furthermore, game-based learning risks extrinsic motivation overshadowing intrinsic curiosity. Students may focus entirely on earning points rather than comprehending the underlying academic material. Since The Learning Standard has not yet evaluated Pear Practice, its long-term efficacy regarding spaced repetition and detailed feedback remains unverified.
Who Might Benefit From Pear Practice?
Pear Practice is best for K-12 educators and students who need a highly engaging, supplementary review tool to reinforce classroom instruction. Because it covers subjects ranging from early childhood math to high school career and technical education, it fits well into diverse lesson plans. It is ideal for classrooms that thrive on collaborative, game-based learning to review vocabulary, factual data, and foundational concepts. Parents will find it useful for keeping their children motivated during study sessions, provided the child already possesses a basic understanding of the material being tested.
Data Transparency
Meets Data Transparency Standard
Pear Practice meets our data transparency standard at Level 2 of 3 (Parent control). Level 3 needs the policy to document an API for retrieving their own data.
29 of 35 checks passed
Evaluated September 2026
Pear Deck Learning Privacy Policy for Product Users →Level 1 · Basic protections
Does not sell data or target ads at students, limits sharing, and lets parents see and delete their child's data.
Level 2 · Parent control (meets the standard)
Families can get their data out, know who processes it, and know how long it is kept.
Level 3 · Direct data access
Families or schools can pull their own data through an API, in a stated format.
Not documented: an API for retrieving their own data
View all 35 checks
Parent Access8/8
Does the policy mention parents specifically?
“If a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel wishes to request a review, correction, or deletion of Personal Student Information or School Information, he/she should contact the appropriate School Official of his/her or his/her child’s School.”
Can parents view their child's data?
“If a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel wishes to request a review, correction, or deletion of Personal Student Information or School Information, he/she should contact the appropriate School Official of his/her or his/her child’s School.”
Can parents modify their child's data?
“If a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel wishes to request a review, correction, or deletion of Personal Student Information or School Information, he/she should contact the appropriate School Official of his/her or his/her child’s School.”
Can parents delete their child's account?
“If a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel wishes to request a review, correction, or deletion of Personal Student Information or School Information, he/she should contact the appropriate School Official of his/her or his/her child’s School.”
Is there a dedicated Children's Privacy section?
“Protecting children’s and student’s privacy is especially important to us. We participate in the iKeepSafe Safe Harbor program.”
Does it reference COPPA compliance?
“We only collect Personal Student Information where Schools have provided consent required by Applicable Law, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).”
Does it reference FERPA compliance?
“We do not use Personal Student Information to target advertisements or market to students or anyone else, to amass a profile about a K-12 educational student for a non-educational purpose, or for any purposes prohibited by the Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99.3) ("FERPA")”
Is parental consent required for child accounts?
“Each school in the United States must comply with any legal requirements applicable to it, which may include, providing appropriate notice and/or obtaining parental consent. Schools located in countries outside of the United States must also obtain and provide appropriate consent from parents and/or guardians of students or as otherwise required by Applicable Law.”
Data Portability4/5
Can users access their personal data?
“If a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel wishes to request a review, correction, or deletion of Personal Student Information or School Information, he/she should contact the appropriate School Official of his/her or his/her child’s School.”
Can users download/export their data?
“Following verification of the requestor’s authorization to receive the information (which may require verification by the requestor’s School), we will provide the student-generated content that we have in a commercially reasonable amount of time in either a CSV or other mutually-agreeable format.”
Is there a self-service data access tool?
“Our Offerings allow Authorized School Personnel to download information on behalf of a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel.”
Is a specific data format mentioned for export?
“we will provide the student-generated content that we have in a commercially reasonable amount of time in either a CSV or other mutually-agreeable format.”
Is there an API for data access?
The policy does not describe an API that users, parents or schools can use to retrieve their own data.
Data Minimization2/6
Is data collection itemized?
“We collect a student’s name, email address, and account identifiers (e.g., Google ID or Microsoft ID), as well as information needed to associate the student with a device, account, class, teacher, or school.”
Can the app be used without a real name?
The policy says it collects students' names, except when students join Pear Deck or Pear Practice sessions in anonymous mode.
Can the app be used without an email?
The policy says it collects students' email addresses, except in anonymous mode.
Does it state collection is limited to what is necessary?
“The information that we collect depends on the Offerings and features within those Offerings that a School uses and is limited to information that is specifically required for the use of our Offerings.”
Is IP address anonymized or truncated?
The policy says it collects IP addresses and does not say they are anonymized or truncated.
Is location tracking explicitly excluded?
The policy says it collects non-precise location and, in GoGuardian Admin, device location.
Third-Party Protection7/7
Does it explicitly state no selling of data?
“We do not sell Personal Student Information.”
Are third-party providers named?
“For example, we use hosting services (e.g., Google Cloud Platform) and customer service tools to help support our Offerings.”
Are providers contractually restricted?
“When we employ another company to perform a function of this nature, we provide them with the information that they need to perform their specific function and impose contractual limits on how such third parties can use such information.”
No-targeted-advertising commitment?
“We do not use Personal Student Information to target advertisements or market to students or anyone else”
Is AI/ML data sharing addressed?
“We do not share Personal Student Information with third-party service providers for training of their artificial intelligence models for their own purposes.”
Child-specific sharing restriction?
“We prohibit third parties from using Personal Student Information to create an automated profile, engage in data enhancement, conduct social advertising, or target advertising to students, parents, teachers, or the school.”
Cookies/tracking limited or opt-out?
“You can opt out from certain cookie-related and analytics processing by following the instructions in the section titled “Cookie Notice” below.”
Deletion & Retention4/5
Can users delete their account?
“If a parent, legal guardian, eligible student, or Authorized School Personnel wishes to request a review, correction, or deletion of Personal Student Information or School Information, he/she should contact the appropriate School Official of his/her or his/her child’s School.”
Self-service deletion mechanism?
The policy only offers deletion through requests made via the school, not a tool users run themselves.
Specific data retention timeline?
“If a School enables the video conferencing feature in GoGuardian Teacher, audio and video recordings will be stored by GoGuardian for ninety (90) days.”
Auto-deletion of inactive accounts?
“We may consider a School’s account to be terminated 365 days after all of a School’s licenses expire without use, reactivation, or renewal by the School. At that time, if a School has not requested deletion of Personal Student Information, we will automatically de-identify and/or delete the School’s Personal Student Information”
Post-deletion handling described?
“To dispose of any personal information, we may anonymize it, delete it or take other appropriate de-identifying steps. Please note that information may persist in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for an additional period of time.”
Advertising4/4
Advertising model explicitly disclosed?
“No advertisements of any kind are shown in any Offerings.”
Free from third-party advertisements?
“No advertisements of any kind are shown in any Offerings. Furthermore, third-party advertising services do not collect any Personal Student Information through our Offerings.”
Children excluded from ad targeting?
“We do not use Personal Student Information to target advertisements or market to students or anyone else”
Ad-free option available?
“We do _not_ use any advertising Cookies in our Offerings and we do not place advertisements in the Offerings.”
Meets Data Transparency Standard
The reviewed policy met our data transparency standard. This result describes the policy disclosures we assessed. Actual practices and legal compliance were not verified.
About this evaluation: Based on automated analysis of Pear Deck Learning Privacy Policy for Product Users against 35 policy-disclosure questions, including questions adapted from the Common Sense Privacy Program's published evaluation questions. TLS is not affiliated with Common Sense Media, and this is not a Common Sense rating. Quoted text is copied from the policy; unquoted notes are our summary. Results describe what the policy documents, not the company's actual practices. Privacy policies can change: this review reflects the version we analyzed and does not determine legal compliance.
Sources and review method
TLS combines product information and editorial analysis to explain how Pear Practice works, its tradeoffs, and the questions to ask before choosing it. Product features, an instructional rationale and evidence of learning outcomes are different kinds of information.
Formal Learning Standard assessment: not yet completed. Data Transparency findings are reported separately and do not establish learning effectiveness. Read our methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pear Practice
Is Pear Practice free?
Yes, Pear Practice is currently available to everyone for free. GoGuardian offers the platform at no cost, making it highly accessible for both educators and parents looking for supplementary review tools.
Is Pear Practice good for elementary students?
Yes, Pear Practice is suitable for elementary students as well as middle and high schoolers. The game-based interface is particularly effective for younger learners who benefit from play-based motivation while mastering foundational facts.
What does Pear Practice teach?
Pear Practice covers a vast array of K-12 subjects, including math, science, humanities, and career and technical education. It does not teach new concepts but rather reinforces existing knowledge through gamified retrieval practice.
How does Pear Practice compare to Quizlet or Kahoot?
Pear Practice functions similarly to Kahoot and Quizlet by utilizing gamified quizzes for retrieval practice. While it shares the same play-based foundation, Pear Practice places a stronger emphasis on collaborative, team-based learning mechanics.
Has The Learning Standard evaluated Pear Practice?
TLS has not yet completed a Learning Standard evaluation of how well Pear Practice teaches. Its privacy policy has been reviewed for Data Transparency and reaches Level 2, Parent control.
Is Pear Practice COPPA compliant?
The reviewed privacy policy references COPPA. A policy reference alone does not establish COPPA compliance. Policy review note: The policy explicitly refers to complying with COPPA.
Is Pear Practice FERPA compliant?
The reviewed privacy policy references FERPA. A policy reference alone does not establish FERPA compliance. Policy review note: The policy commits not to use student data for any purpose FERPA prohibits.
Does Pear Practice have a children's privacy policy?
The reviewed policy includes a dedicated children's privacy section. Policy review note: The policy has its own section headed "1.3 COPPA Safe Harbor".
Does Pear Practice sell student data?
The reviewed policy states that the app does not sell data. This is a policy statement; actual data practices were not verified. Policy review note: The policy states the company does not sell student data.
Can you delete your data from Pear Practice?
The reviewed privacy policy describes account deletion. We have not tested the deletion process. Policy review note: Users can ask through their school to have their data deleted.
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- Pricing
- Pear Practice is currently available to everyone for free.
- Platforms
- Web Browser, iOS (Apple mobile), iPadOS (Apple tablet), Android (Google mobile), Tizen (Samsung mobile), Windows (Microsoft), macOS (Apple), Chrome OS (Google), Other
- Grade Levels
- Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
- Website
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