CamERA 2008

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

We have a full-day conference today at the faculty. It's called CamERA 2008 though I am not sure what does ERA means, probably Educational Research Annual (or Association but unlikely). Anyway, it is a great opportunity every year to come to this conference and meet almost all the academic staff and phd students in the faculty.

Since early this year, the faculty has divided all the academic staff and research students into five different groups according to the areas of interest. I am under the Science, Technology & Mathematics Education group and my supervisor organises our own little Science Learning group which initially has nothing to do with this umbrella group cause we have been running our group long before the introduction of these five groups. I am also a member of another research group named Self-regulated Learning under the Psychology & Neuroscience in Education group led by Dr. David Whitebread. Reseach groups are very important not just as a form of support and motivation for phd students who are working independently (or alone) most of the time but also a place to learn and update ourselves with latest news and development in the respective research area. You will never know what you can learn from attending the meetings.

Today, at the conference, the parallel sessions were divided according to the umbrella groups, this is probably the only time in the year that each group manages to meet each other and get to know what others are doing. I met a Singaporean guy who has been doing quite a similar research as mine only with different focus, methods and location. It is good to get to talk to him and learn from him too. And also to speak broken English!

Anyway, I get to catch up with some other friends and exchanging words of encouragement is such an uplifting feeling to get on with my work.

Hope we all will be successful in our studies.

Wassalam.