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Showing posts from 2015

Planning breaks during your PhD

When I started my PhD here people told everything about work during the PhD like working long hours or even during week end, working hard during the Government Holidays when even the school office is closed and access is limited to the University... bla bla. The thing that I never heard of is planning a break during this long journey. So I took it for granted that I am married to the PhD for this three years and should not think of anything else. But soon I became tired, started nagging with my husband for holidays and at one time I freaked out. It was just after three months during Christmas. Me and my husband were not really used to the idea of planning the breaks long before and found it impossible to go somewhere as the ticket prices were untouchable at the moment. So I got rotten at home for those few days of vacation. I carried loads of books to home which remained untouched until the day when the school reopened. I am from a country where people generally don't plan

Can't write? Talk!

I attended a workshop on 'beating writer's block' though I knew I did not yet reach to that stage of writing to face writer's block. I have been procrastinating about writing a journal article for a long time, more than two years now and then I put it aside completely thinking its not the priority at the moment. The priority is finishing the PhD. But you know its not write, publishing is the key to be in academia after my PhD. Even if not the journal article I have been procrastinating about writing 1000 words everyday. I have been telling myself since the beginning of my PhD that I will start tomorrow. May be I am the only one who is being so stupid during her PhD. And you are thinking that reading my blog is a mere waste of time. But wait, I might have to tell something to the people who think like me. Well, as I have started my scary third year, I don't have any choice but write. I could not yet finish the whole chunks of data analysis. I am doing mixed method

Week in Review

I have been away from blogging for quite a long time. But I want to at least report on what I was doing in the past week on every week end. This is a start on that. I have passed a really really busy time last week and also a very productive (!) - well I can't say that but I have been in the process and I got really good feedback from my colleagues. 1) Tutoring: I was engaged in tutoring on Monday morning. I am really enjoying tutoring in the art and design studio. I am being able to learn many things- how to engage the students in the process.  - The students of Architecture are required to be given an introduction to the design process (research process as a part of it). - They might be exposed to how they will apply their art and design exercises in future design through some presentations. - The students should be encouraged to use their sketchbook and the sketchbooks will be a part of the submission. It is needed to be ensured. 2) Presentation in the PhD LA Seminar

Wishes for a new Semester

Yes! The third year of my PhD has officially started. This should be the last year of my PhD and therefore I will be living my last moments in Edinburgh may be. In that case its high time I plan for this year to work to my fullest and to enjoy it to the greatest too. It is heart aching to think how fast time flies and this year will pass may be in the blink of an eye. I want to make the time frozen, I want to live a bit more of this year. I want this 12 months to be 18 months long. How can it be! Its difficult to plan for a year, but I can set my goals for this semester only- September to December. Yes this will give me some more time to think about my further plans for work and joy. The goals or I will say my 'wishes' are here- Continue with the writing retreat. Arrange it sometimes so that it happens at least once in a fortnight. Make the 'research ADDA' a regular thing. Plan and give time. Establish the morning routine. Don't be hard on yourself but l

Research ADDA is going on in full swing

Groupfie: Hanis (top photo; from left Hanis, Sharifah, Azlina, Matluba (me ;) ), Nik and Roxana) We, the PhD Landscape Architecture students of ESALA meet fortnightly for an informal gathering in any available place nearby our office. The venue is mostly the board room or if not available then in ECA cafe or Cafe Truva just opposite Evolution house. We have named it 'Research ADDA'. Adda is a Bengali word which means an assemblage of friendly talkers, most popular is adda over tea at a road side shop named 'tong er dokan'. The name says it all as we want this meeting very informal where PhD students of Landscape Architecture (in fact not limited to LA only, there are students from Architecture and also Moray House School of Education too) will share with each other the challenges they are facing, the goals they are achieving, the rewards they are having from their supervisors and bla bla bla.. Its talking about everything (read 'research' ;) ) about a PhD s

Analysis Dilemma: Check of Normality

I have data for three different groups- Treatment group and Comparison group is the treatment school and the comparison school itself. First I was confused whether I need to test the normality for individual groups or all the samples together.(??) Later on I have run the analysis for all the samples together later on . (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed not significant results for individual groups, yet sample size is less than 30) EXAM SCORE DATA: In the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test the results are not significant for science and religion course before intervention and the maths score after intervention i.e. these data are normal. The scores for all other elements are significant which proves non-normality of the data. However, the skewness and kurtosis value for all the elements of the exam scores are within the acceptable range of normality that is -2 to 2 (George and Mallery 2010). The lowest value is -1.320 and highest is 0.873. The average skewness value is 0.316 and the

Conference Review: Lessons from Near and Far 03/07/2015

A week ago I have attended the international outdoor learning conference in London. I presented my paper on examining the links between the design of outdoor learning environment and children’s learning. I have also presented a poster on the design of a school ground in a primary school in Bangladesh. This oneday conference was very intense and informative. I cannot remember of such an engaging and successful gathering in recent times as every one was talking on the very topic on which I am living since my undergraduate studies. The aim of the conference was primarily to inform the policy about the findings of the research on potentials of learning in the natural environment at different countries of the world. The morning session of the conference comprised of the introductory speech followed by four keynote papers on research and policy in four different countries of the world. I found the objective of the conference and my research coincide in many ways like- -           Bui

Presenting your thesis in 3 minutes? Is it possible?

Today I went to the finals of 3 Minute Thesis Competition. Presenting one's 3 or more years' PhD in only 3 minutes using one slide without any animation or props is a really difficult job. I was really eager to see the contestants who have gone through this journey. I was interested to learn how they squeezed their thesis in three minutes, what are the judges' responses to that and how the audience is reacting. Last year I was a runner up in the school heat (ECA heat). I started the journey which I could not finish but later on I overcame my lacking in the Falling Walls Lab Edinburgh. The only difference between three minute thesis competition and falling walls lab is you can use more than one slide in falling walls lab, you can also use some props. But both the competitions are very strict to the 3 minutes boundary and its safer to prepare your presentation for less than 3 minutes. You can present whatever you are doing in your PhD in the three minutes thesis but fallin

Patha Bhavana, Shantiniketan_ More than 100 years of outdoor learning practice

Patha Bhavana   ( Bengali :   পাঠ ভবন ) is an institution of primary and secondary education in   Santiniketan ,   West Bengal ,   India . It was founded by   Nobel laureate Poet   Rabindranath Tagore   in 1901 with only five students which later grew into   Visva-Bharati University . The school is established based on the philosophy of learning being in nature with close connection to it without any superficial barriers between teachers and students. It was opposed to the mainstream classroom learning system based on the books only. It’s often referred to as an   ashram   system where the teacher is guru and teaches his or her disciples sitting in the shade of a tree. It is one of the two primary and secondary school affiliated with the Visva-Bharati University; the other being   Shiksha Satra . Patha Bbhavana is established for children from class I to class XII. Generally in the schools in Indian subcontinent children remain in the classrooms. The teacher moves from one

Nightmare of looking for a flat

When we first came in this deserted heaven, we were really fortunate to meet  Fancy  and Dikens to be our host for the first few days. Mohit and Toma were there to help us with until we found a suitable home for us. It was September 2013 and all the student accommodation were already booked... Searching for flats in a place you dont know is always the most difficult job, sometimes we came up viewing flats in really dodgy area but the interior was spacious..We  were confused... Then  Reyhaneh  gave her hands and sent the link of the house where we lived for the next one year... To us it was no less than a resort facing the hills from the living room window. We used to say that we are having our extended honeymoon in the most beautiful city of the world...Oh! Appin terrace! Now after long eight months, the scenario started repeating. We are again at Mohit's place waiting for a flat close to my office. Having the fringe festival ahead the rent is higher and also the flats are mos

New Direction for Data Analysis

This morning I met Sarah, my supervisor from the Moray House School of Education and talked about on what I got from my field survey. We began our chat with the analysis of quantitative data which eventually took turn into the analysis of ethnographic data. I have executed an ethnographic research quite unconsciously as I used to go to the school before everybody came and left it after everybody had left. I spent the whole day there observing how the children are interacting with the changed environment, how the teachers are taking classes in the outdoors and above all how the days are spent in the school. I have still quite fresh memories of the day to day life of children in the school which are needed to be transcribed into any media as soon as possible. The best way might be write it down what comes to my mind. But sometimes writing can take you to completely different direction. What I can do is to talk to myself or some other person (my husband may be) and record it. The most

Lost in loads of data? Prepare for the analysis!

As I said in the earlier post that I have just come back after my data collection. My research is an experimental one which includes an intervention in a primary school in Bangladesh. Therefore it means I have double data compared to any other research methods- pre and post intervention data. These pile of things have put me on a 'denial' mood and I was trying to spend my times on every other thing except going back to data. Then I have got this part of a book 'Planning and Preparing the Analysis", Chapter 2 of the book 'Applied Thematic Analysis' published by SAGE. I will just try to write in bullet points the key things I have learnt from this chapter- 1. The first and foremost thing is to establish your Analysis Objectives - what you are trying to achieve with the data and how you are going to achieve it. This requires going back to your research design. Your analysis objectives will always relate to your research questions. 2. When jotting down t

Back to Edinburgh_Beginning of the 2nd half

Literally, the other half of my PhD life has begun in Edinburgh as I am back here on the 31st of May. I have just finished my data collection in Bangladesh and have been preparing myself for the toughest job (to my eyes)- data analysis. But according to my supervisor, I have done the most difficult job- making change to a school ground in real and I have completed it in due time. I have got the confidence from her that if I can do that I can easily do the rest of the jobs of here. I have many plans for this second half of my PhD. What I wanted to do the most after coming back here is to walk, yes to walk at least half an hour everyday. So before I go to bed I want to make sure that I have done these three things- 1) have done some sort of exercise- walking/cardio 2) have done some write-up for at least 10 minutes 3) writing something in my blog, PhD journal I have passed my first week arranging my new work space. I got the key from graduate office, arrange stuffs on my desk. wo