In this article, fourth-grade teacher Tabetha Finchum describes how a program called Arizona Master Teacher of Mathematics (AZ-MTM), a Noyce grant funded through the National Science Foundation, helped boost her confidence and broaden her understanding of the philosophies, curricula, and instructional decisions being implemented by other teachers. During the program, she gained valuable insight into how children effectively learn mathematics. Also AZ-MTM gave her the opportunity to learn new mathematics at an adult level and develop a new depth of understanding about mathematics content. This stronger mathematics understanding, paired with educational research on pedagogy and ample time breaking down the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), boosted her confidence in understanding multiple strategies for solving mathematics problems and taught her the importance of children being able to do the same. AZ-MTM was also strongly teacher-driven, with participants being given the opportunity to suggest content and constantly evaluate their current needs as teachers. During her time in the program, Finchum began to realize that her goal was not for students to just be able to get the right answer to twenty mathematics problems. Instead, her goal was for them to learn mathematics through developing real understanding of ideas rather than just learning procedures to follow. Herein, she describes the changes she made in her teaching methods. She also discusses how she empowered her students, shared what she was learning in the AZ-MTM program with her peers, and opened her classroom to other teachers. Finally, she describes the impact the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP) in CCSSM (CCSSI 2010) had on professional development training at her school.