Cicely’s Story
Dr. Cicely Woodard is an experienced teacher leader who has taught secondary mathematics since 2003. She spent most of her career teaching middle school math in Tennessee, but has been teaching high school mathematics in Springfield, Missouri since 2020. Cicely has a passion for teaching mathematics content through relevant, real-world contexts.
Students in her math classes develop critical thinking skills while engaging in challenging math tasks that require them to justify their thinking and critique the reasoning of others through small group work and writing about math. Cicely believes that learning math can help her students face life’s challenges with confidence. As a teacher leader, Cicely has given speeches, led professional learning, informed education policy as a member of various committees, written for publication, and served as a professor of practice preparing future teachers to lead classrooms.
Cicely has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Memphis, a Master’s of Secondary Education from Vanderbilt, and a Doctorate of Education in Learning Organizations and Strategic Change from Lipscomb University.
Throughout her career, Cicely has received multiple teaching awards and honors, such as; 2017 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 2018 Tennessee Teacher of the Year, 2019 Horace Mann Awardee, 2019 NEA Member Benefits Awardee, 2022 NEA Foundation Global Learning Fellow, 2024 Curriculum Catalyst Fellow, and 2025 Bipartisan Policy Center Future of American Teaching Fellow.
She has also published papers in multiple educational journals such as Teacher2Teacher, EDSurge, and Edutopia. In addition to teaching high school mathematics, Cicely currently serves as a professor of practice at Reach University, a non-profit university that offers apprenticeship degrees for aspiring teachers through job-embedded learning.