Amber Woodard

Clinical Instructor

Amber Woodard has spent a few decades in K-6 classrooms, guiding students as they explore, question and discover the world around them. She focuses on nurturing curiosity, creativity and confidence, helping children engage deeply with learning while developing the skills to think critically and independently.

As a clinical instructor, field supervisor and center coordinator, Amber brings years of classroom experience to the next generation of educators. She mentors pre-service teachers in bridging theory and practice, helping them develop both competence and confidence as they enter diverse classrooms. Her work is grounded in the belief that education is a collaborative, transformative process, one that shapes students, teachers and the communities they serve.

A conversation with Amber

What has been your favorite course?

It was the summer of 2024 when I stumbled into Reading 690, Advanced Writing Project. Two short weeks on paper became all-consuming days, beginning before dawn and ending long after the world went still, when only the lamp beside me pulsed like a stubborn heartbeat refusing to rest. What should have been exhausting felt like liberation; a long-held breath finally released. Each sentence felt like reclaiming a piece of myself I had tucked away. For years, I had written beside my students, shaping their words while mine waited quietly in the margins. Then came my doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction; precise, exacting and brilliant in its rigor. It sharpened my thinking, but it tamed my wildness. My words learned to “behave,” when what they really longed for was to breathe.

From the first day, everything shifted. Dr. Revelle and Dr. Slay didn't just teach. They threw down the door with a battering ram of ideas that shattered the neat walls I had built in my mind. My thoughts surged into uncharted territory, following memory like light through dust. I wrote with deliberate abandon, unearthing fragments that trembled in my hands; some bright, some heavy with grief. But even in the mess, they gathered themselves, demanding honesty, demanding to be seen. I discovered that expression isn't about control or composure; it's about surrender. It's about wrestling with language until it yields something true; something that alters you in the telling.

By the end, I understood what I had nearly forgotten: writing is not a skill to polish, but a becoming…a reshaping of soul. That awakening didn't end with me. It spilled into my Reading 370 classroom. My students now write with audacity and tenderness, exploring thought and emotion with the same wild curiosity I had rediscovered. Some tell me it has awakened something in them, too. They will one day pass that same courage on to their students, the current widening with each generation, carrying forward the living thread of who we are…and who we are still becoming.

Educational Background

• Ed.D., Curriculum and Instruction, East Texas A&M University, in progress
• M.A., Education, Curriculum and Instruction, East Texas A&M University, 2023
• B.S., Early Childhood Education, East Texas A&M University, 2005

Honors and Awards

• Teacher of the Year, Bonham ISD, 2022
• Distinguished Alumni Scholarship, 2024
• Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading Emerging Literacy Leaders Grant, 2024
• Certificate of Appreciation, Student Government Association of ETAMU, 2025

Professional Organizations

• International Literacy Association, 2024-present
• Texas Association for Literacy Education, member and chair-elect, 2024-present

Student Organizations

• National Writing Project of Northeast Texas, 2024-present
• Phi Kappa Phi, 2023-present
• Alpha Phi 2002-present
• ETAMU flute player, 2001-2003
• Breakout Entertainment, 2001-2004
• Mayo College student and mentor, 2001-2005