Edit Slides After Starting a Session

When you start a Pear Deck session, Pear Deck captures your slides at that moment and uses that snapshot for the entire session. Edits you make to the source deck afterward do not appear in the active session. This is expected behavior, not a bug. To see your changes in a session, end the current session, update your source deck, and start a new one.

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How Session Snapshots Work

When you launch a session, Pear Deck copies your slides into the session at that exact moment. The session runs from that copy, not from the live source deck. This means:

• Changes you make to the source deck while a session is active do not appear to students or in your teacher dashboard.
• Changes you make to the source deck after a session ends do not carry over if you reopen that same session.
• The only way to have students see your updated slides is to start a new session.

The snapshot model protects session integrity. If slides updated mid-session, student responses could become misaligned with the questions they answered.

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What Changes After You Edit

This table shows what happens when you edit a source deck during or after a session. The session always reflects the deck as it was at launch.

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Relaunch with Your Changes

To have students see your updated slides, end the current session and start a new one.

1. Open your teacher dashboard or go to Sessions in Pear Deck.
2. End the current session. Select More Actions on the session card, then choose End this Session.
3. Open your source deck and make your edits.
4. Launch a new session from the updated deck.

Starting a new session generates a new join code. Share the new join code with your students. Students who were in the previous session need to join again using the new code.

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Copied Decks and Shared Decks

If you made a copy of a deck before launching a session, the session uses whichever version you presented from.

• If you launched from the original deck, edits to the copy have no effect on the session.
• If you launched from the copy, edits to the original deck have no effect on the session.
• If a colleague shared a deck with you and you launched from it, edits the original owner makes to their copy do not appear in your session.

When you start a session, Pear Deck snapshots the specific file you opened at launch. The source of that file and who owns it does not change the behavior. If you are unsure which version you launched from, check the session name in your Sessions page. It reflects the deck title at the time of launch.

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Student-Paced Sessions

Student-paced sessions follow the same snapshot behavior as live sessions. When you switch a session to student-paced or launch one directly, Pear Deck locks the slides to the state they were in at launch. Edits to the source deck after switching to student-paced mode do not appear to students who are already in the session. To give students access to updated slides in student-paced mode:

1. End the current student-paced session.
2. Edit the source deck.
3. Launch a new session and switch it to student-paced.
4. Share the new join link with students.

Students who completed work in the original session retain their responses in the archived session. Their new responses are captured in the new session.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Why Didn’t My Edits Show Up After I Relaunched?

If you relaunched by reopening a closed session rather than starting a new one, the snapshot from the original launch is still in use. To get your edits, start a new session from the updated deck rather than reopening the old one.

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Can I Add a Slide to an Active Session?

No. Slides can only be added to the session by starting a new one. Adding a slide to the source deck while a session is running does not add it to the active session.

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Do Student Responses Carry Over to the New Session?

No. Each session stores its own student responses. When you start a new session, it starts with no responses. The previous session and its data remain available in your Sessions page.