Deanna Castle-Hebeler

Deanna Castle-Hebeler earned her BA in History with a minor in Secondary Education and her MEd in Elementary Education from the University at Buffalo. She has been teaching at Smallwood Drive Elementary School in the Amherst Central School District for 15 years. Mrs. Castle-Hebeler taught Primary Multi-Age, was a grade 1-2 looping teacher and is currently a first-grade teacher. She is a committee member on the district math committee, a general education representative on the school behavior committee and first-grade liaison. In addition, Mrs. Castle-Hebeler has presented on a variety of topics to elementary teachers her district. As a teacher of young learners, Mrs. Castle-Hebeler works to create a classroom environment that is student centered and encourages collaboration, exploration, investigation, and discussion. Through investigation, students discover important conceptual ideas with peers in a concrete way. Mrs. Castle-Hebeler enjoys reading, organizing, baking, spending time with her husband, two children and her dog. As a NYS Master Teacher, she looks forward to learning with Master Teachers, joining Professional Learning Teams that focus on student engagement in math and science and will continue to work with the Buffalo Math Collaborative to increase her pedagogical and content knowledge in Mathematics.