A site-based model for professional development in mathematics at the elementary school level

Teaching is a profession in which one must continue to learn because there is no one right way to teach, and one does not “master” teaching. Students change, curricula change, and schools change; thus there is always a need to grow as teachers. Heaton (1994, 2000), an experienced teacher who engaged in a year-long self-study as she tried to change her teaching practice to be consistent with current calls for reform, characterized teaching as “inherently under construction … and continuous invention” (p. 341).