Views of mathematics students and teachers in teacher professional development

In today’s world are the complexity of teacher’s and governor´s (hereinafter referred to as: teacher) respectively role and high expectations from different social groups towards the teaching profession quite common. Every teacher is supposed to be autonomous and capable of diagnosis and innovation of his or her own practice. This requires continuous learning and professional development of the individual teacher as well as the entire school. The teacher’s professional development is part of lifelong learning and it covers all learning experiences that are directly or indirectly beneficial to the individual, and contribute to the quality of his work in the classroom. Through these learning experiences, a teacher develops critical knowledge, skills and abilities in all fields of his professional life. Phenomena such as: student diversity, new findings in the field of didactics and psychology, difficult students are both, a challenge and a threat to the teacher and require a higher level of his professionalism. The teachers will professionally and personally develop and improve the quality of their work in the classroom if they are more susceptible to changes and accept them as challenges. Moreover, it is important for the students that they, as the future teachers, understand the importance of professional development and lifelong learning, because in that way they will be better prepared on the previous mentioned challenges. The purpose of my research was to highlight the concept of the mathematics teacher’s professional development from the perspective of the future teachers and the teachers who already have various teaching experiences. 
Keywords: teacher, teacher professional development, teacher competence, reflective teaching, models of teacher professional development, the new professionalism professional development factors, vocational training, professional biography. 
Danijela Rus