Digital learning has reshaped education in many ways. The purpose of this study is to respond to the question of whether COVID-19 is the gateway for digital-learning in mathematics education. To this end, this study explores some uptakes of social media platforms by prospective secondary school teachers. Data was collected from 102 prospective mathematics teachers from the Copperbelt University (CBU). Cluster analysis approach was used. Results revealed that participants' scores for digital learning in mathematics in cluster 2 were higher than those in both cluster 1 and 3. This is a clear indication that prospective teachers in clusters with low scores are more likely to exhibit low skill levels in the use of mobile technology and the adoption of social media in relation to mathematics pedagogy during the COVID-19 crisis. Results show different patterns. However, overall results show that digital learning could be a positive response to COVID-19 closure period.

The learning situation in the Zambian education sector has changed in the age of COVID-19 when the first two cases of COVID-19 infection were detected in the country rising to 45 local and at least 1.8 million infections globally by 13 th April, 2020. Zambia became one of the many countries globally that has prematurely closed all schools. This study examines prospective teachers' online learning mathematics activities in the age of COVID-19 pandemic. Cluster analysis results revealed that online learning mathematics activities have significant mean differences in clustering. Cluster 2 recorded the best performance, implying that students in this cluster exhibited excellent online learning skills for mathematics in technology-rich environments in which they will be forced to study and work in the future. The study reviews various available online platforms and indicates the one that will be opened by the government which is the Educational Channel on TV.

The integration of ICT in formal teaching and learning environments has become more and more relevant along the last decades. However, its use in the mathematics classroom seems to be still far from initial expectations. This paper shows the results from a research conducted to get some insight about such a gap by analyzing the relationship between pre-service primary teachers' teaching styles in teaching and learning mathematics and their attitudes towards the use of technology in mathematics classrooms. Analysis of Variances and step-wise multiple regression analysis were performed over the data provided by one hundred and sixty three participants by completing survey questionnaires. The results indicate that pre-service teachers' year of study has no significant impact on the integration of ICT in the teaching and learning of mathematics while teaching styles and gender do have. Furthermore, age, gender and teaching styles are capable predictors for the construction of the regression model and it is deduced that teaching styles have a predictive ability on the integration of ICT in mathematics classrooms.

During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital learning has reshaped mathematics education in different ways. In particular, different social media platforms have acquired an unforeseen prominence as a way to enhance mathematics learning and to model somehow the face-to-face classroom interactions abruptly interrupted. How primary and secondary students have reacted or responded to these changes in the initial learning conditions is the main aim of this study. With this purpose in mind data was collected from 3179 students from the Gaza Strip by means of a validated rating scale and then a cluster analysis approach was applied that revealed the existence of three clusters. K-means cluster analysis was applied to analyze data as an exploratory approach to identify structures within the data. Also, chi-square was applied to identify differences between the clusters with regard to demographic characteristics. Regarding the grouping of participants in clusters the analysis performed lead to the identification of three clusters: Cluster 1, 2 and 3 had 2001, 824 and 354 cases, respectively. These clusters were grouped depending on employ social media platforms used by the students to reinforcement their mathematics learning. Participants in Cluster 3 exhibited the highest proficiency in the usage of social media for mathematics learning as compared to those in Cluster 1 and Cluster 2. This means that students in cluster 1 are more likely to exhibit negative attitudes and low levels in the skills related to using digital technology and the employment of social media in mathematics learning. The results showed that there were no significant differences between cluster-groups with regard to gender, age, and type of school. In contrast, significant differences were found among the three clusters with regards to the educational level of parents and the economic status of the family. However, the overall results show that digital learning is considered a positive response to the school closure in the time of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Social media technologies have reshaped our lives today and Zambian teachers do a massive use of smart phones, tablets, and other portable tools. In addition, they are continually searching for forefront innovations. Frequently, the utilization of these gadgets is not in manners foreseen by innovation advocates. This study focuses on exploring the use of social media platforms and the impact of such social networking services in the teaching and learning of mathematics by pre-service teachers. To explore pre-service teachers’ use of social media in their teaching and learning experiences, the authors administered an adapted and validated research instrument via a quantitative survey system to a sample of 102 pre-service teachers from the Copperbelt University. Analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis were used to test the interplay of relationships between pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards the use of social media based on year of study and gender, social media use and classroom integration, social media use, and mathematics pedagogy. Further, a statistical test was run to show whether positive correlations existed or not. Results disclosed that respondents showed an average use of social media tools in mathematics and provide a prediction model for pre-service teachers’ future integration of social media in the teaching and learning of mathematics.