Even if you’ve used DGP and/or DRP before in your physical classroom, instruction probably looks a little different for you this year. Many teachers have emailed or called to ask about making DGP and DRP effective in a virtual or hybrid classroom, and you have plenty of options!
First, please know that we are currently working on an app that will provide students with an interactive version of DGP and provide teachers with a control center for monitoring student work. This app will eventually be available for DRP as well. Unfortunately, it isn't ready to go yet, but here are some tips to help you in the meantime.
Just like in the physical classroom, each student learning online will need either a physical workbook or a copy of the reproducible sentence list and help pages from the teacher’s guide. Copyright laws DO permit you to post the reproducible materials in your online classroom as long as access is limited to your own students. (Posting them publicly would be illegal, of course.)
If you are meeting over a live platform (such as Zoom), DGP and DRP shouldn’t look much different than they do in the regular classroom. Ask students to hold up their workbooks so you can see that they have completed their assignments just as you would in a regular classroom. Then go over the work, asking students to contribute or even explain a whole day’s worth if they are able. They should make necessary corrections and ask relevant questions.
In hybrid situations, you can still do DGP and DRP every day. But if you would rather go over it in person only, you can just combine days. For example, if you meet three days a week, I like this combination for DGP: Go over Monday by itself on Day 1, Tuesday and Wednesday together on Day 2, and Thursday and Friday together on Day 3. For DRP, I like to combine Monday and Tuesday for Day 1, Wednesday and Thursday for Day 2, and do Friday by itself on Day 3.
For DGP two days a week, I like Monday and Tuesday on Day 1 and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday on Day 2.
For DRP two days a week, I like Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on Day 1 and Thursday and Friday on Day 2.
I currently teach in person just one day a week, so we simply go over all of DGP and DRP at once, and that works fine as well if you have a long enough class period.
Combine days in whatever way works best for your students. But even if you meet only one or two days per week, students should still complete their exercises each day at home. Then in class, you can chunk the days to go over them.
We do have e-workbooks, which are PDFs that students can write on with a finger or stylus, depending on what type of device they have. These are basically the same as physical workbooks in that they are consumable (so you need one per student), and they are not connected to any type of teaching monitoring system like the app will be. They are available through EdTech, and you can find a link under "Digital Versions" in our menu.
Finally, we also have a video series that walks students through every day of every week, and some teachers are showing students the videos in their virtual classrooms (or just using them for their own preparation). Note, however, that the videos are streams, not downloads, so you can show them in a live online class but can't post them to your online platform for students to watch later. You can find more information on the videos (and samples) at the link below.
https://www.dgppublishing.com/blogs/dgp-blogs/dgp-academy-now-delivers-instructional-videos
Perhaps you already figured out an effective model for online DGP/DRP during last semester’s shut-down. If you have tips that I haven’t included in this post, I’m sure other teachers would appreciate your sharing them in a comment.
If there is anything else that we at DGP Publishing can do to help you make DGP and DRP successful during this unusual school year, please let us know. And thank you for your tireless dedication to teaching!