Student Collaboration in Blending Digital Technology in the Learning of Mathematics

Will we ever teach mathematics again in the way we used to before the pandemic?

“…As in any mathematics course in school and in university, knowledge construction is acquired not only by accessing the information, but also by the interaction that occurs among students and teachers; interactions need to occur collaboratively among participants (Engelbrecht & Oates, 2022 ). Therefore, the focus in education has been changing from a situation of students passively absorbing information from an educator who is teaching by writing on the blackboard— pushing knowledge—to a stronger student driven approach, where students take control of the learning process—a pull process (Bassendowski & Petrucka, 2013 ).…”

“…An environment that supports the development of communities and collaborative discussion opportunities can assist students in comprehending and synthesising information, as independent and critical thinkers (Engelbrecht & Oates, 2022 ). Social media have been used as a significant tool in providing such an environment, which supports self-directed and self-determined learning (Blaschke, 2019 ; Schuetz, 2014 ) and foster a sense of belonging, facilitated by collaboration and communication (Balakrishnan et al, 2017 ; Goodyear et al, 2014 ).…”

“…An examination of social media sites on the internet provided some insight into how students use social media. Comment social media streams 1 (which at times can be surprisingly deep) form an important component in the social interaction leading to learning (Engelbrecht & Oates, 2022 ).…”

“…Engelbrecht and Oates ( 2022 ) addressed three essential questions concerning the role of social media and we do not dwell on these here: these question are still open and need to be researched, especially due to their relevance for changing mathematics education in pandemic times: Has anything changed? How does the use of contemporary social media differ from previous use?…”

“…An array of media and technology has been introduced to create hybrid forms of teaching, including e-learning (Ebner et al, 2020 ), mobile learning (Naciri et al, 2020 ) and flipped classrooms (Tang et al, 2020 ). A variety of media platforms have been used to support online teaching and learning, such as learning management systems, instant messaging applications, instant meeting applications, social media and dynamic geometry packages (Engelbrecht & Oates, 2022 ).…”