I come from a family of teachers, and the one who inspired me most was my father. A math teacher, he didn’t know a thing about engineering, but his way of teaching left a mark on me. Whenever I was stuck on something, whether it was a problem or a block in my creativity, I would go to him. He’d share some random story from his life—completely unrelated to the problem I was facing—but by the end of it, I always had a fresh idea or a new perspective on my problem.

My father passed away last December (2024) after losing his battle with cancer. During his illness, I designed this., It was the last idea I worked on with his support. My wife helped me finalise it. With the help of my colleagues, we implemented the activity. Soon, Kathrine, a wonderful person herself, learned about it and became more involved than even the students! And so, here we are to share with you not just a mathematics lesson, but one about the 18th dimension of learning.

I believe that learning is directly proportional to motivation and engagement. This is what I’ve learned through my career and from the people I love. We all know stories resonate with us. Since the dawn of civilization, we’ve been captivated by them. And we enjoy them even more when we can become part of that story, which is where games and interactive media come into play. 

What we did was combine 10 key aspects of deep learning, which include Motivation, Competition, Enjoyment, Focus, Engagement, Real-world applications, Computation, Stepwise solutions, Problem-solving, and Understanding. We designed activity task cards in PowerPoint, printed and packed them using in-house printers. Each group had different time constraints based on a raffle at the start.

For video editing, I used Premiere Pro and Premiere Rush, simply because I was familiar with them. The editing required isn’t complicated, even something you can easily learn in a 2-hour online course. Some clips and editing tips were generated using ChatGPT, and the overall editing was straightforward. 

Fantastic feedback! We collected data through anonymous surveys, and all the key dimensions received positive ratings, with Motivation and Competition scoring the highest. This activity clearly works, and I'm excited to share more with you through a short video showcasing what students experienced.