TELL Awards

How to Unlock Student Talent
Educators help students build expertise. Despite their critical role in the overall process, many teachers are unaware of the research on how expertise is truly developed. Guided by the inaccurate folklore around talent we unconsciously limit the aspirations of our students and ourselves and fail to align our schools and classrooms for optimal growth. You can promote expertise systematically and consistently, and research documents this.
Specific topics examined in this interactive forum include:

• Essential research covering the 100-year span of the study of expert performance
• The actual role that genes and innate talent play in our overall success
• The qualities of "deliberate practice,” heralded as "the most powerful approach to learning that has yet been discovered”
• Practical ideas on implementing the "science of expertise” in our schools and classroom
• Resources to support implementation including ideas from Mike Schmoker's landmark work, Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Performance.

About Gene M. Kerns, Ed. D.

Gene is a third-generation educator with teaching experience from elementary through the university level and K-12 administrative experience. He currently serves as Chief Academic Officer of Renaissance.

With more than 25 years of experience in leading staff development and speaking at national and international conferences including South by Southwest (SxSW) EDU, London’s Westminster Education Forum, the ASU/Global Silicon Valley (SGV) Summit, the 42nd Annual Mexico TESOL Conference, and the Global Education Technology Forum of China. His former clients include schools and administrators’ associations across the US and the UK, as well as the Ministries of Education of Singapore and the Bahamas.

Gene received his Bachelor's degree and Master's degree from Longwood College in Virginia, and also holds a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) from the University of Delaware with an emphasis in Education Leadership.

His most recent work has been focused on assessment and literacy. His first book, inFormative Assessment: When It’s Not About a Grade is published by Corwin Press in both English and Arabic. His second book, Unlocking Student Talent, was released by Teachers College Press in December of 2017. His latest book, Literacy Reframed, was released in 2021 through Solution Tree.