Mona has been a teacher and school principal for the first 14 years of her career working both in the primary school and high school context in the United States and South Africa. After being awarded a Masters degree in Education, Curriculum and Instruction from Virginia Tech, she has spent her time in primary school classrooms in public, private and charter schools.

During her years as a math teacher Mona continued to improve her practice and in 2009 achieved United States National Board Certification. This was the same year Mona was accepted to be a Teaching Fellow with Teach With Africa, a teacher exchange programme between America and South Africa. This opportunity turned out to be life-changing, literally. During the two-month placement, Mona made a decision to accept a position as Instructional Specialist and eventually Principal at LEAP Science and Maths School, her TWA placement school, in Cape Town, South Africa. Working with township youth in South Africa ignited even more of a passion in her that every single child in the world deserves great opportunities. After seeing first-hand the outcomes of educational disparity on high schoolers, Mona shifted her focus to primary education and moved to Johannesburg to be the founding principal of SPARK Cresta, the second school in the SPARK blended-learning network.

Mona currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa and works for The Breteau Foundation, an organisation that provides tablets and teacher training to under-privileged schools. At the Breteau Foundation, Mona is responsible for teacher training and classroom technology implementation in the South African schools and she is the lead teacher trainer for the five countries Breteau Foundation serves.  In two years, Mona has expanded the South African project from a two-school pilot, to an ever-growing programme serving 16+ primary schools in rural and urban township areas. Mona is honoured to put her passion into this global technology initiative that currently reaches 10000 students and 300 teachers.

In this hands-on workshop geared towards Grade R-7 teachers, participants will learn how to use tablets to ensure all learners are reaching their full potential.  Often times, students fall behind and it can have detrimental effects on their emotional and academic growth.  Similarly, students that are not challenged can become distracting to others. To address the needs of all students,  we will first be analyzing formal and informal academic data that can guide instruction. Then we will be using Maths apps to create CAPS aligned learning groups for high medium and low learners.  You will walk away with many differentiation methods, including a leveled lesson plan, to take back to your classroom for immediate results.