Dawna Koder

Coral Springs Charter School

On February 5th, members of the Education Team visited Coral Springs Charter School to recognize Dawna Koder as the January Bright Spots winner! Mrs. Koder is a Middle School Intensive Reading teacher who has taught at CSCS for five years.

Mrs. Koder's submission revolved around multiple categories: Flexible Learning Spaces, Differentiation, Personalized Learning, and Student Ownership of Data.

Mrs. Koder explained in her entry that, "Allowing students comfortable seating options, and the ability to choose where they learn best, helps them understand themselves better as learners, but also provides them with 21st century skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity."

Her students work through station rotations every other week, and although every student rotates to each station, the material changes based on the students needs.

The material at each station in Mrs. Koder's classroom is based on student data pulled from NWEA, PSA, Reading Plus, and Lexia Core 5. This enables Mrs. Koder to see which of her students need re-teaching and which students can be challenged in different areas. In turn, this allows Mrs. Koder to go over specific data with individual students consistently, and it also allows her to remediate struggling students and challenge her students who are mastering standards.

This method of small group differentiation has impacted her students achievement, and it also allows for ownership of student learning. Students are presented with the data which they keep copies of in their Intensive Reading binders. Using this method, they can track their progress and see what areas they still need help with and what areas they are mastering.

Mrs. Koder further drives student ownership in her classes by providing a rubric at each station, where students grade themselves on their effort during each rotation. She then gives each student a grade based on recorded observations and work collected during each rotation.