Panelist Dr Leshota Moneoang

Moneoang Leshota, PhD, is a Senior Researcher at the University of Pretoria, Mamelodi Campus. She is responsible for conducting research pertaining to the Pre-University Academy (PUA), with particular focus on teacher professional development. Dr Leshota holds a PhD in Mathematics Education from the University of the Witwatersrand (2015). Her thesis explores the relationship between affordances of mathematics textbooks to the teachers’ practice and the teachers’ Pedagogical Design Capacity (PDC) or capacity for effective use of textbooks. She is published in the field of textbook (curriculum resources) use. She has close to two decades of experience in tertiary teaching of undergraduate mathematics, with a specific focus on bridging and upgrading, coupled with first-year transition that many students find hard to manoeuvre. Dr Leshota has vast experience of working in teacher professional development after working with the Wits Maths Connect Secondary project (WMCS) for close to a decade. The WMCS work, supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation, culminated in the development of the Mathematics Teaching Framework (MTF) tool for planning, teaching and reflecting on teaching; as well as the Mathematical Discourse in Instruction (MDI) framework for researching classroom teaching.