Gideon van Tonder is an Associate Professor and the Deputy Director in the Faculty of Education at North-West University in South Africa. He holds a BCom, a Higher Education Diploma, a BTech in Educational Management and Leadership, a Master's in Education focused on Educational Management and Leadership, and a PhD in the same field. Gideon has received the Distinguished Excellence Award in Teaching and Learning, the highest accolade for teaching and learning, as well as a Teacher Excellence Award. His research interests include teacher professional development, self-directed learning, cognitive education, and innovative pedagogy. He is actively involved in national and international projects related to gamified learning, open educational resources (OER), and professional mentoring aimed at fostering teacher autonomy. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters on 21st-century teacher empowerment, and edited volumes. Additionally, Gideon serves as a reviewer for various Q1 and Q2 journals and is a member of the executive committee of the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and OER, as well as the Research Unit for Self-Directed Learning. He has successfully supervised many postgraduate students and currently supervises master's and PhD candidates in the field of teacher professional development.