Lisa Gilbert’s expertise includes the philosophy of education, social studies curriculum and instruction, and museum education.
Dr. Gilbert possesses a multifaceted professional background that has allowed her to develop a deep understanding of multiple educational spaces and how formal and informal systems work together.
As a teacher educator, she brings over 10 years’ experience teaching university courses in instructional methods and culturally responsive pedagogy, supervising student teachers in diverse spaces from urban charters to rural public schools, and creating custom professional development programs for school districts and cultural institutions. She strategically leveraged her doctoral coursework to develop skills in evidence-based practices in teacher education for fostering “ambitious teaching,” a framework aimed at engendering dedication to profound student learning contextualized by a deep comprehension of inequity in curricula, instructional practices, and educational systems alike. At WashU, she teaches students seeking certification in every subject area offered by our teacher education program. Her seminar on educational psychology focuses on socially just pedagogies of many kinds, and her design for a new, interdisciplinary secondary methods course included a partnership with the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and garnered a presentation at the Missouri Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. All in all, she approaches courses in a way designed to develop teachers as “public intellectuals,” following the framing of philosopher Henry Giroux: empowered and effective educators working for equity within our shared civic community.
As a teacher, she has worked for both public and private schools in the United States and Austria, with her courses including high-stakes college preparatory testing such as AP United States Government & Politics and AP Comparative Government & Politics. Her classroom was profiled in publications from the American Historical Association, Boston Public Library, and Saint Louis Public Radio. Under her coaching, several students advanced to the state- and national-level competitions of National History Day. She presented her approaches at multiple conferences, including those of the National Council for the Social Studies and National Council for History Education, and also served as a board member for the Missouri Council for the Social Studies. She also completed teacher professional development programs hosted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Yale University, National Endowment for the Humanities, Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, The College Board, and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.
As a museum educator, she first worked as a bilingual educator for the McCord Museum of Canadian History in downtown Montreal before overseeing K-12 programming for the Missouri History Museum. In this role, she created standards-based interdisciplinary lessons that tied history to subjects ranging from STEM fields to dance and world languages, ultimately increasing school attendance by over 500%. To handle this flood of students from across the Saint Louis region, she established a paid internship program that ultimately gave over 70 future teachers hands-on experience working with students of all ages and backgrounds. Additionally, she spearheaded and facilitated three years of teacher learning cohorts focused on sensitive pedagogical approaches to the history of enslavement in the United States. She also served on exhibit creation teams and managed educational partnerships with national organizations such as Monticello and Mount Vernon, along with serving as a consultant for an electronic field trip program at Colonial Williamsburg.
Dr. Gilbert’s research interests are situated at the intersection of social studies education with public & popular history. She is particularly focused on helping students engage in critical inquiry around the narratives we tell about the past in sources beyond schools, such as museums or video games. Her publications have appeared in academic journals such as Theory & Research in Social Education, Teaching & Teacher Education, The History Teacher, Teaching Philosophy, The International Journal of Music Education, Literacy and Social Responsibility, and Curator: The Museum Journal. Her outreach has included interviews for Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance), Saint Louis Public Radio, the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Education Week, and NBC News.
A skilled musician, Dr. Gilbert has taught for children’s, youth, and adult programs at the Community Music School of Santa Cruz (California), Skåne Folk Flute Workshop (Sweden), Boxwood Festival and Workshop (Nova Scotia, Canada), Saint Louis Irish Arts, and Siamsa (Montreal’s School of Irish Music) as well as maintained a private studio for individual lessons. These rich pedagogical experiences in arts education beyond the school-based classroom also contribute to her insights on the lived psychology of meaningful teaching and learning.
At WashU, Dr. Gilbert serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Educational Studies program and takes joy in her central work of teaching and advising students while collaborating with colleagues to the benefit of all. Across campus, she sits on the University Assessment Committee, thereby contributing to the institution’s participation in the Higher Learning Commission’s accreditation process, and is a trained Recruitment and Search Advisor (RASA) through the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity. She is the recipient of a Teaching Innovation Grant as an early adopter of the Literacies for Life and Career initiative, part of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan, and was selected for the “Creating Equitable and Inclusive Learning Environments” faculty learning community hosted by the Office of the Provost. Dr. Gilbert is also a member of the Mindfulness Science and Practice cluster in the Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures, through which she received a grant to compose and record harp music for research on meditation practices. She is also the Education Department’s Study Abroad Coordinator and previously sat on the Teacher Education Committee (2020-2024), which helps shape the certification process and determines graduate admissions for teacher candidates. In all these endeavors, her service to our shared university community is motivated by a deep commitment to cultivating dynamic student growth, both within the classroom and beyond.
