Dr. Ginger Starks-Yoble's Bio: Dr. Ginger Starks-Yoble is a German teacher at Westside Middle School and recently was recognized nationally by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages as the 2017 Outstanding K-8 German Teacher of the Year. Dr. Starks-Yoble builds strong relationships with students and appreciates how knowing her learners enhances the climate in her classroom, the learners’ academic efforts and success, and the level of student engagement during the learning process. In addition to teaching German, Dr. Starks-Yoble encourages students to embrace who they are and supports learners as they develop their critical thinking skills. This podcast is one of a number of steps Dr. Starks-Yoble is taking towards her most recent personal and professional goal of developing an online presence in order to share and reflect on her experiences as a teacher.

Description: What a fun podcast! Ginger Starks-Yoble’s energy and passion for developing the whole student shines through as she shares the personalized components of her classroom practices in her German language course at the middle school level. Ginger’s story begins with her forays into intentional tech integration that came as a result of her doctoral coursework. In this episode, Ginger expounds upon how her early experiments with tech opened up choice opportunities that permitted her opportunities to enhance her personal rapport with her students, improve her classroom climate, and create a class culture that supports and promotes learner autonomy.

As you listen…

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• Note how Ginger weaves our personalized elements together to the mutual benefit of each independent element and also as a means of enhancing the overall learning experience as a whole.
  

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• Consider all of the subtle opportunities for differentiation and choice Ginger takes advantage of as ways in which to further student engagement.
  

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• You can certainly hear Ginger’s passion for the work she does with her learners, so listen for all of the ways in which she is intentional about getting to know them, as students and people.