The fourth annual ELLI Conference will be held Thursday, April 3, at Discovery Park of America in Union City. The theme for this year’s ELLI Conference is “Experiential Learning in the Age of AI.”
The University of Tennessee at Martin’s Experiential Learning Leadership Institute – known as ELLI – hosts the regional conference to bring educators and students from around the region and from UT Martin to highlight some of their research in experiential learning and share that information with other educators and students.
“Experiential learning is hands-on learning; it’s learning by doing,” said Dr. Lajuan Davis, professor of information systems and co-chair of the ELLI Conference. “It’s a valuable concept in education.
“Research supports the concept that students learn more and learn better – and they think that their learning is more valuable – if they actually get to do hands-on work.”
Dr. Dexter Davis, professor of sport management and the other co-chair for the ELLI Conference, said the theory originated with Dr. David A. Kolb, the founder of Experience Based Learning Systems Inc.
“His theory states that a person has a concrete experience, he reflects on that experience, and that’s where learning occurs,” he said. “Then, you take what you learned to the next experience and you reflect on how you changed the first experience to reflect on the second experience. It’s just a continuous cycle of learning.”
Lajuan Davis said that the conference has yielded some very interesting, creative presentations, and this year’s conference is no exception.
“Dr. Laurie Pewitt from UT Southern will be presenting a poster entitled, ‘Zest for Success: Building a Business at the Lemonade Stand’ that highlights teaching budgeting, marketing and customer service skills to students,” she said. “Additional presentations include teaching soft skills, educating students about workplace bullying and how to heal from it, combining working for the National Guard while preparing for veterinarian school and, of course, handling the integration of artificial intelligence into education.
“We usually have a speaker centered around our lunchtime who talks to us about the latest and most innovative experiential-learning techniques. This year, Dr. Tim Newman, a podcaster and golf tournament promotor and director, will conduct a short workshop during our lunch break. We try to pack in as much information as we can for this conference.”
Lajuan Davis said that the conference has added an educational journal to the ELLI web page. People who have papers to submit provide those to the ELLI editorial staff to have them reviewed and eventually uploaded to the site. All papers are double-blind, peer reviewed.
Lajuan Davis said the Horace and Sara Dunagan Chair of Excellence in Banking – directed by John Clark, former president and CEO of First State Bank – has been supportive of the ELLI Conference from the beginning of its inception.
“(Clark) is helping to sponsor a student intern who has been working with me on the conference,” she said. “The Dunagan Chair has been very gracious in the past in supporting this conference.”
Cheyenne Stewart, a senior management major from Centerville, is the intern, now in her second year working with the ELLI Conference.
The deadline to register for the ELLI Conference is Saturday, March 15. Information about the conference, including registration information and educational journal information, can be found at www.utm.edu/elli.
For more information about the University of Tennessee at Martin, visit www.utm.edu or call 1-800-829-UTM-1 (-8891).
PHOTO: Dr. Dexter Davis (at far left) is shown moderating a panel discussion where Dr. Lajuan Davis’s students (shown) shared their semester-long experiential-learning project at last year’s ELLI Conference. This year’s ELLI Conference takes place April 3 at Discovery Park of America in Union City.
