Teaching and learning high-school mathematics via WhatsApp: teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

We investigated teachers’ perspectives about what opportunities for learning and teaching could be created using WhatsApp as a social network to help students prepare for the final secondary-school Bagrut (matriculation) exam in mathematics. Launched by the Ministry of Education and the Center for Educational Technology three months before the Bagrut examination, the “WhatsApp Bagroup” project was initiated to serve as an additional environment for learning mathematics. The formation of these WhatsApp groups was meant to provide an online review project during which teachers integrated blended learning, and students presented problems with which they were having difficulties. During this initiative, we applied a quantitative and qualitative research model to analyze the teachers’ points of view about what learning and teaching opportunities were created. The study used a mixed method, sequential explanatory procedure to acquire a complete understanding of the factors that constitute teachers’ perceptions of learning and teaching via the Bagroup project. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using three tools: a questionnaire with Likert-type statements and open questions, informal semi-structured interviews, and observations of four Bagroup study groups conducted during the three-month period. Factor analysis revealed three categories regarding the Bagroup environment: factors that contribute to learner’s emotional needs, factors that promote learning, and factors that inhibit learning. The findings may have implications for distance and remote learning and teaching opportunities.

Introduction

Communication is a necessary and essential component of the learning-teaching processes. Plentiful, diverse communication allows students to organize, analyze, evaluate, and enhance their ability to express their mathematical thinking consistently and clearly alongside the mathematical thinking and strategies of others. It teaches them to use proper mathematical language to accurately express mathematical ideas (NCTM, 2000). During lessons, it is important that teachers initiate a discourse to promote communication between students and use diverse tools for explaining, making connections, solving problems, reasoning and raising persuasive arguments, and simultaneously developing the students’ conceptual understanding and procedural fluency (NCTM, 2009, 2019). Precise communication allows students to better describe their mathematical ideas to their peers, their teachers, and others (Putra et al., 2020). It allows students to understand representations of mathematical objects and allows teachers to identify student creativity and motivation in mathematics (Tong et al., 2021). Respectful communication means that each student’s idea is taken seriously and that everyone has the opportunity to ask questions, make statements, and express their ideas (Chapin et al., 2013).

“Orchestrating such discourse presents a unique challenge in online settings where discourse usually takes the form of discussions about shared readings or experiences rather than collaborative problem-solving of a mathematical task” (Morge et al., 2020, p. 216).

The integration of online social networks in education invites students and teachers to communicate on such platforms, however, they must quickly adapt to the advantages and challenges of managing these online learning environments.

Social networks, WhatsApp, and blended learning

In recent years, social networks have become a widespread and often principal platform for communication between people in different social, family, organizational, etc. circles. Recently, the use of social media has also begun to spread into educational systems: schools, institutions of higher learning, and professional development programs for teachers (Calderón-Garrido & Gil-Fernández, 2022; Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Nida et al., 2020).

The most commonly used social networking sites are WhatsApp (highest rated) followed by YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. However, only about 40% of teachers use social networking sites often or always for educational purposed (Calderón-Garrido & Gil-Fernández, 2022). WhatsApp has become a highly popular virtual meeting place for youth and adults (Boyd, 2010; Greenhow & Askari, 2017). Preference for WhatsApp is based on a number of factors, including ease of managing communication, its accessibility to existing groups, and the simplicity of building groups (Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Naidoo & Kopung, 2020; Nida et al., 2020; Rosenberg & Asterhan, 2018). Teachers tend to prefer WhatsApp over other platforms for organizational purposes (Rosenberg & Asterhan, 2018).

A growing body of empirical research suggests that the use of digital social platforms such as WhatsApp can be instrumental for teaching and learning content knowledge (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016).

In a survey of educational research literature about learning and teaching using social network sites, Greenhow and Askaril (2017) presented a decade of research in K-12-related education and examined how such technologies are perceived and used by K-12 learners and teachers and their impact on pedagogy and learning. Although none of the studies presented in this survey specifically relate to mathematics education or the WhatsApp application, the authors pointed out that there is a lack of basic research that focuses on learning in innovative technological environments and emphasized that such studies may discover teaching–learning opportunities that may not have yet been recognized.

Following the call of Greenhow & Askaril (2017), in recent years there has been an influx in research focusing on the pedagogical benefits of using social media for promoting and supporting learning (Naidoo & Kopung, 2016; Yeo, 2014), however, the majority of these studies focus on post-secondary contexts relating to pre- and in-service teachers’ professional development (e.g., Dyson et al., 2015; Moodley, 2019; Naidoo & Kopung, 2016; Sendurur et al., 2015) or on developing virtual communities for supporting and monitoring in-service teachers (Moodley, 2019).

The WhatsApp social network can be—and has been—integrated into pre-service teacher learning processes. The pre-service mathematics teachers, as learners, are motivated to collaborate with colleagues by communicating over the Web; learn in the various environments that social network learning allows; expediate their learning through exposure to many, varied learning interactions between the group’s members; and employ anonymous, active, or passive learning (Konyefa & Nwanze, 2020; Moreno-Guerrero et al., 2020; Naidoo & Kopung, 2020). According to social learning theory, passive learning can be defined as observational learning by which knowledge or skills are acquired by observing the actions of others and the outcomes of those actions, that is to say, learning from the experience of others (Li et al., 2023). According to Bandura (2001), observing others’ experiences can lead learners to adopt new behaviors and allow them to cope successfully with difficult and challenging tasks. As a result of their exposure to a variety of outcomes, they may change their perspectives of what is possible. Furthermore, learners who are less confidence about their abilities "can feel safe and confident" to “peripherally engage in the dialogue," thus allowing them a "more authentic environment for observation and less nervousness among observers" (Li et al., 2023, p. 108).

However, as noted, research on the use of social media platforms for teaching and learning in K-12 contexts in general is less common and even sparser in the context of K-12 mathematics education. Given the prevalence of social media in everyday life—especially among teenagers—we suggest that such research is desperately needed.

For the K-12 student, learning via social media can foster teacher–student or student–student interactions. It can provide almost-immediate feedback, specific focus on their learning and understanding difficulties, and exposure to the mathematical ideas of their peers (Biton, Hershkovitz, & Hoch, 2014; Biton & Segal, 2021; Freeman et al., 2016; Greenhow & Askari, 2017). It can promote collaboration and develop communities of inquiry (Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Naidoo & Kopung, 2016). Students perceive the WhatsApp group as a safe place for informal relationships and personal disclosure (Kizel, 2019) and as a platform where they can share ideas without fear (Biton & Segal, 2021; Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Naidoo & Kopung, 2016). In addition, students feel that this environment breaks down social hierarchies and boundaries and provides an attentive, flexible environment where they have the freedom of choice whether to respond or not (Kizel, 2019).

Teaching via WhatsApp groups allows teachers to better know their students personally (Bouhnik & Deshen, 2014) and incorporate discussion-provoking interactions that motivate students to learn (Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Nida et al., 2020).

Schleicher (2019) emphasizes that as a result of the accessibility of new smartphone technologies, students now have diverse opportunities for learning, improving reading skills, and cultivating critical thinking. For example, when learning via a social network, they need to evaluate the reliability of the extensive information they are exposed to: “the more knowledge that technology allows students to search and access, the more important becomes deep understanding and the capacity to make sense of content” (ibid, p. 14).

Diverse opportunities for learning mathematics with WhatsApp may be implemented by using blended learning (Nida et al., 2020). Blended learning comprises a set of learning and teaching methods that can include collaborative activities, flipped classrooms, and online instruction via the application. It invites students to engage in a variety of activities and fosters excitement and joy, which allows them to better interact with their teacher and peers. Blended learning in the WhatsApp environment is an important tool for exposing students to a large repertoire of thinking strategies and task-solving tactics, promoting their creative thinking.

As a result of this “innovative” contemporary teaching strategy, mathematics teachers must become aware of how to use the WhatsApp social network, become familiar with the teaching possibilities that this environment offers, and be able to implement the appropriate pedagogy. Alongside didactic aspects, teachers must also consider emotional and social aspects (Schleicher, 2019).

Social-emotional learning as a part of learning environments

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is defined as the process by which social and emotional abilities develop. The process of acquiring and applying knowledge and skills necessary to recognize and manage the emotions that are involved in displaying empathy toward others, making responsible decisions, defining and achieving positive goals, establishing positive relationships, and facing challenging situations. All these fall into five categories: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, communication skills, and responsible decision-making. The process of acquiring and developing SEL skills occurs in parallel with learning processes and the acquisition of knowledge and skills in the context of learned content (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2003; Weissberg, et al., 2015). These skills develop when learners are given the autonomy to experience belonging and the opportunity to manage and develop their own learning through communication with colleagues, social communication, support, respectful cooperation, caring, and decision making (Deci & Ryan, 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Giving students such autonomy is a very important factor in the quality of the teacher–student relationship (Reeve, 2006). It occurs when the teacher allows students to choose how to learn from a variety of options and to establish their understanding processes by being provided, among other things, with the opportunity to advance their learning goals via a variety of learning methods and materials. In addition, there are findings that point to a number of teaching behaviors that support student autonomy. Such behaviors include creating time for independent work, providing opportunities for students to express themselves, praising and encouraging student’s efforts, providing cues that allow progress when a student seems stuck, and listening to student’s questions and comments (Reeve, 2006; Reeve & Jang, 2006).

Students crave a sense of belonging and connection with others, so teachers and educational leader need to make sure to meet that need through their academic work (Anderson, 2021). Developing a student’s sense of belonging through collaborative work requires guidelines on how to build social skills, support group work, and achieve productive, positive experiences (Anderson, 2021).

Developing SEL skills for learning mathematics is especially essential because quite a few students have negative feelings towards mathematics in particular. SEL skills can be fostered during general education, but also during mathematics classes by offering relevant study materials (Kamour & Altakhayneh, 2021; Sears et al., 2022). The development of SEL skills can occur in parallel with the acquisition of mathematical knowledge in a myriad of ways. Developing self-awareness and self-management allows students to identify their emotions, analyze them, and then calm themselves when they are frustrated. It also allows them to feel safe to ask questions when they need help (CASEL, 2022).

According to Rusticus et al. (2023) and Cayubit (2022), feeling safe to ask questions without judgment is one of the key elements for establishing a positive learning environment that provides an optimal emotional climate, will foster personal development, relationships skills, and learning strategies. These studies emphasize that the learning environment has a decisive influence on learning opportunities and with the proper encouragement can promote student’s motivation and engagement in the learning process. In addition, an effective, safe, and supportive learning environment, where teachers are accessible and students can experience peer interaction, enables students to cope with solving tasks and improving their learning strategies.

All these can be expressed while studying mathematics. When students are faced with a mathematical problem, they test their knowledge and skills, seek thinking strategies to solve the problem, and translate their insights into a solution. Developing social awareness and communication skills with colleagues is manifested when students consider their peers’ ideas and approaches in problem solving, evaluate proposed solutions, experiment with others’ ideas while developing their own understanding of the problem, and evaluate ways to solve it while communicating their ideas to others (Sears et al., 2022). The mathematics teaching–learning process also occurs via student–student and student–teacher discussions, which also foster the development of social-emotional skills.

Joswick and Taylor (2022) emphasize the link between SEL and the discussions that occur in mathematics classes. Social awareness and relationship skills support a positive classroom environment where students are respectful when discussing their peers’ ideas, listen empathetically, communicate their ideas clearly and carefully, and implement appropriate social norms. Social awareness and relationship skills include asking one another questions to make sure they grasp how their peers are thinking. Through class discussion, teacher and students can monitor and evaluate learning processes of the content being studied as well as processes of learning social-emotional skills.

Technology offers enormous innovative opportunities and applications for real-time discussion and to assess and track students’ SEL progress over time. The potential is huge as it allows reaching large numbers of people instantly and simultaneously (Weissberg et al., 2015).

One teaching–learning option that can occur in a technological environment and that promotes SEL skills while teaching curricular content is blended learning. Studies indicate that blended learning promotes collaborative activity and interaction between learners. It also promotes independent learning during the learning processes with peers. With blended learning, students must put effort into acquiring knowledge and this may stimulate their motivation. Students studying in a blended environment will require a variety of skills to solve difficulties they have in understanding, thus fostering reading comprehension, critical reading of their colleagues’ explanations, and self-regulated learning (Bahri et al., 2021; So & Brush, 2008).

Nevertheless, we need to be aware that learning mathematics in diverse environments, including online learning via WhatsApp, does not necessarily relieve students’ anxieties regarding mathematics (Nida et al., 2020).

Teacher’s technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK)

The literature describes various models concerning teacher’s knowledge of how to integrate technology into teaching processes. One model is the TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) model (Koehler & Mishra, 2009, based on Shulman, 1986). “TPACK” is an amalgamation of Technological Knowledge (TK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), and Content Knowledge (CK).

TPACK implies that all three bodies of knowledge intersect at various levels of complexity (Klemer & Rapoport, 2020; Segal et al., 2018) and it encompasses the knowledge teachers require to effectively integrate technology into teaching (Schmidt et al., 2009). The model has become a useful framework to understand the goals involved in integrating technology into teacher education, as well as mapping teachers’ knowledge and skills, because it encompasses the knowledge teachers require to effectively integrate technology into their teaching (Agyei & Voogt, 2012; Caniglia &Meadows, 2018; Nantschev et al., 2020; Polly & Orrill, 2012; Schmidt et al., 2009). The model’s complexity is reflected in the common components of basic knowledge. For example, TK is knowledge about the various technologies available for teaching in the classroom and online environments (Marissa & Allahji, 2022; Tondeur et al., 2020). TCK—technological content knowledge—is knowledge about how technology can create different representations of a specific concept; it demands that the teacher be aware of how different technologies affect learners’ skills and understanding of the relevant concepts and content. TPK—Technological Pedagogical Knowledge—implies familiarity with the range of technologies that can be integrated into teaching and understanding how their use can affect teaching methods. Teachers who have a deep and expansive TPK can use technologies that allows their students to be exposed to a variety of physical and virtual means of thought, thereby improving their thinking and understanding skills (Özerem, 2012). They also can use technologies for student assessment in a variety of ways, including self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and more (Torres-Madroñero et al., 2020), and it also enables the promotion of students’ inquiry skills and active learning (Klemer & Rapoport, 2020; Segal et al.., 2018).

Clearly, making use of any web-based social platform requires the teacher to have TPACK: the technological capacity to operate within the platform, the pedagogical skills to use it effectively, and (as goes without saying) the content knowledge they aim to impart to their students.

The WhatsApp Bagroup project

The WhatsApp Bagroup project (hereinafter referred to as “Bagroup”) was initiated in 2016 in Israel by the Center for Education Technology in the Ministry of Education. It began on the Facebook environment (Biton & Segal, 2021; Biton et al., 2014) and continued with the integration of the WhatsApp application to offer a learning environment for high school students preparing for their math matriculation (“Bagrut”) exams.

The mathematics matriculation exams in Israel are held at the end of the 11th grade (Part A) and 12th grade (Part B). There are three levels: the three-unit level is the lowest and five units is the highest. Common topics for all levels of study include algebra, differential and integral calculus, analytical geometry, verbal problems, series, probability, and statistics, but the higher the level, the more in-depth the topics are taught and the higher the level of complexity of the tasks. Some subjects are studied only at higher levels. For example, plane geometry involving the use of deductive proofs, differential and integral calculus of quotient functions, trigonometric functions, and exponential functions are taught only at levels four and five, and subjects such as vectors and complex numbers are taught only at level five.

The current study was conducted among WhatsApp groups with students in grades 11 and 12 who were studying for matriculation at the five-unit level, meaning they were required to study a larger number of topics at the highest level of complexity. The questions on the matriculation exams at these levels require solid understanding of the subjects alongside the connectivity between different concepts, such as the connection between vectors and spatial trigonometry, between complex numbers and series, and more.

Success in the five-unit-level mathematics matriculation exam enables admission to in-demand faculties at universities and eventually higher remuneration from employment (Ben-David & Kimhi, 2020; Zeedan & Hogan, 2022). Therefore, many students are eager to succeed at this level, and the State of Israel is interested in providing learning opportunities that will lead to success in the matriculation exam at this level for all students.

The aim of the project was to enable as many high school students as possible to succeed by providing professional support beyond school hours. Most importantly, it enabled students with low socioeconomic status to receive educational support (thus bypassing the need for expensive after-school tutors), thereby reducing gaps and promoting equal opportunities for all the students preparing for matriculation in mathematics.

The project offered a number of advantages. (1) Immediacy: students who encountered any learning difficulty could get an immediate, professional response from a teacher or help from other students (peer learning). (2) Equality: using the free WhatsApp technology allowed the entire student body to participate and receive help for their problems. (3) Mobile learning: the smartphone supplemented classroom instruction anywhere and anytime in the student’s natural environment. (4) Encouragement: the program helped strengthen understanding and feelings of capability, increasing self-confidence. (5) Variety: students were exposed to many learning and problem-solving methods.

The study

A number of studies were carried out while the Bagroup project was underway to evaluate its efficacy. The main purpose of this current study was to identify the teachers’ perceptions of the Bagroup mathematics project teaching/learning environment.

The following research questions guided the study:

• (1) What do teachers perceive to be the main factors that promote or inhibit learning high school mathematics in the Bagroup project?

• (2) What do teachers perceive to be the main contribution that the Bagroup project made to their professional development?

Method

Participants

Students. A call went out to the entire population of Israeli high-school students inviting them to experience learning via WhatsApp groups alongside other students across the country and under the guidance of an expert teacher. Participating in the project would allow them the opportunity to study anonymously with a different teacher and peers and get answers to their questions at any time of the day. Forty groups were formed so that in each group of about 100 students there were no more than ten from the same school, thus ensuring a heterogeneous country-wide population in each group studying for the mathematics matriculation exam at a specific level.

Teachers. The teachers who participated in the project, 40 in all, were selected based on recommendations made by the education system or mathematics pedagogical instructors (on behalf of the Supervisor of Mathematics Teaching in the Ministry of Education). They all had at least five years of experience teaching mathematics. Alongside their participation in the online Bagroup project, they were also teaching mathematics in regular classrooms in school.

Pedagogical coordinator. The pedagogical coordinator had extensive experience in teaching high school mathematics and alongside a team of experts, designed the teaching program for each group according to the study level of the matriculation exam. They created a syllabus and located appropriate digital teaching material from a variety of recognized, approved websites, which they offered to the teachers for integration into the learning-teaching processes. These included PowerPoint presentations, ready-made widgets that visually and dynamically illustrated mathematical concepts and processes, information pages, worksheets, and more.

From time to time, the pedagogical coordinators monitored the learning-teaching processes in the various groups with the assistance of additional teachers. They were in continuous contact with the teachers in order to address challenges that were expressed in the teaching–learning processes in the various groups and to try to think of ways of solving and coping.

Administrative coordinator. Responsibility for all the technical and technological aspects of organizing the groups was that of the administrative coordinator, who, alongside a team of experts, ensured that each group included students who did not learn in the same class at school, managed the technological design of the WhatsApp groups, matched each group with a teacher, and identified technological malfunctions or difficulties that users had and provided an immediate response. The backup provided by the administrative coordinator allowed teachers the freedom to concentrate on the learning-teaching processes.

Setting

The project ran for approximately three months prior to the exam, during which hundreds of thousands of messages pertaining to scholastic content, questions, solutions, and explanations were sent. Each of the participating students studied mathematics both in their regular class in school and in the Bagroup setting. This means that during this time, a student would be participating both in their dedicated class-based WhatsApp group and also in the specific Bagroup group to which they had been assigned (the students and teachers of which they did not personally know). Similarly, the teacher moderating any particular Bagroup study group did not personally know any of the students, had no information about their academic abilities, nor knew which schools they attended (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Illustration showing students participating in two learning environments: regular classroom and Bagroup Project via WhatsApp

Teaching process

Learning in each Bagroup study group was based on “blended learning” in synchronous and non-synchronous sessions (Garrinson & Vaughan, 2008; Nida et al., 2020; Schwartz et al., 2017; Tella, 2014). It was based on the constructivist approach, which invites experimentation and research by the learners for the purpose of building knowledge.

The specific learning program for each group was designed by the pedagogical coordinator. For each topic, two or three 45-min-long WhatsApp synchronous lessons were held in which the assigned teacher presented the topic, shared applicable files, promoted written discussions, and emphasized significant points. They could make use of these materials suggested by the coordinator and also bring into the virtual learning group any educational materials that they already had incorporated into their regular classrooms over the years.

Every day, questions in the pre-defined topic for the day were offered by the teachers and solved within the group. Learning was continuous (24/7) and facilitated in a variety of ways: text messages, voice messages, photos, videos, questions, presentations, and more. Although the group was overseen by this professional teacher to ensure consistency, most of the learning was peer-to-peer and the main role of the teachers was to monitor the interactions within the group and, if necessary, point out relevant correspondence between students or a question that had not yet been answered.

Data collection

The study used a mixed method, sequential explanatory procedure to acquire a complete understanding of the factors that constitute teachers’ perceptions of learning and teaching via the Bagroup project. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected via observations, questionnaires, and interviews (Corbin & Strauss, 2014; Creswell, 2014).

Observations of four Bagroups study groups. The researchers monitored random student and teacher messages from four groups to identify interaction processes between the participants, circles of student–student and student–teacher discourse, and types of questions and solutions proposed. These observations included more than three thousand messages.

Questionnaire. The major source of data was obtained via online questionnaires distributed at the end of the three-month learning period to all the teachers who supervised the Bagroup groups. Out of the 40, 24 responded.

The questionnaire comprised 11 Likert-type 6-point-scale (1, complete disagreement, to 6, complete agreement) statements (the statements are presented in the Findings section) and 14 open questions that asked the teachers to detail or explain their reasoning for how they scored the statements and to present relevant examples or explanations for 3 or 4 statements of their choosing. For example, to present three advantages and three disadvantages they found or to expand on how the method allows meeting students’ social and emotional needs.

The questionnaire was designed by five experts in mathematics education (the pedagogical coordinator, the second author of this paper, and three other researchers in mathematics education) who also ascertained the validity of its structure and content, determined whether each item in the questionnaire was relevant to the current study, and examined the necessity of each item for answering the research questions. At the end of the process, items for which at least 80 percent of the judges agreed were selected.

Interviews. Informal, semi-structured interviews were conducted via video chat with three participating teachers and two pedagogical coordinators (these took place after the analysis of the questionnaires). The interview questions dealt, among other things, with the teachers’ insights regarding their experiences in the Bagroup project and their assessment of the effectiveness of learning in the group for their students. They were also asked to compare face-to-face teaching in their regular classroom with “virtual” teaching.

The purpose of the interviews was to more fully understand their answers to the quantitative and qualitative items in the questionnaire, by obtaining relevant examples from their experience.

Data analysis

Stage 1. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the questionnaires. Data analysis (frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations) of the Likert-type statements allowed tracking the factors that teachers believed promoted or hindered learning-teaching in this environment.

Stage 2. Qualitative analysis of the interviews and observations. The interviews took place after the stage-1 analysis, allowing the researchers to better understand, refine, and develop the aspects that had emerged. At this point, we also examined our observations of the four groups, searching for additional evidence and episodes to further corroborate our initial findings. The transcripts of the teaching–learning observations allowed us to observe authentic processes from the virtual learning groups and identify different types of interactions (student–student and student–teacher), reasoning processes, explanation given by the students and the teacher, synchronous teaching processes in WhatsApp, and more.

Systematic content analysis was used for the qualitative analysis. The teachers’ responses to the open-ended questions and the transcripts of the interviews were divided into “units of meaning” (from one word to a sentence or paragraph that includes one idea) and themes were identified and categorized using the “constant comparative analysis” method (Charmaz, 2014; Glaser & Strauss, 2017) and dividing them into primary and secondary content areas (Fram, 2013).

We also tried to identify incidents and statements that emerged as a result of our observations and that reinforced our choice of categories. The observations gave more meaningful understanding of the teachers’ responses to the questionnaire. The quantitative results helped strengthen and refine the insights and conclusions of the qualitative findings, and vice versa.

Stage 3 The results of the analyses were validated and verified by three expert judges (researchers in mathematics education) until agreement was reached on the categorization.

Findings

This section describes the overall findings obtained after triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative analyses. Table 1 presents the list of statements and the average score and standard deviation of each (these have been already published in Segal and Biton (2022). Factor analysis identified three primary categories regarding the Bagroup environment with a plausible internal reliability: 1) factors that contribute to learner’s emotional need, five items: α = 0.79; 2) factors that promote learning in the WhatsApp environment, four items: α = 0.74; and 3) factors that inhibit learning in the WhatsApp environment, two items, ρ = 0.28, p ≤ 0.000. (Note, these findings were previously published in Segal & Biton, 2022.) It can be seen that the teachers’ perceptions of learning in the WhatsApp environment are diverse.

Table 1 Averages and Standard Deviations of the categories and statements that relate to teachers’ experience in teaching mathematics in the WhatsApp “Bagroup” Program

We next analyzed each statement to determine the distribution of agreement. For ease of presentation, the original six Likert scores were reduced to three levels: disagree (all answers originally scored as “1”), somewhat agree (all answers originally scored as “2” or “3”), and agree (all answers originally scored as “4,” “5,” or “6”).

Factors contributing to students’ emotional needs

Table 2 presents the distribution of answers in the first category. Although most teachers seemed pleased with many aspects of the Bagroup format, it is still worth noting that more than a third believed that it did not allow them to meet each student’s specific needs.

Table 2 Levels of teachers’ agreement with statements concerning the contribution of the Bagroup WhatsApp environment to learner’s emotional needs

The qualitative analysis of the questionnaire’s open items and the interviews strengthened the quantitative results and mentioned a number of factors that helped meet students’ emotional needs, specifically the emphatic discourse (and encouragement), the anonymity, some facets of availability, and the peer factor.

The teachers mentioned the value of emphatic written discourse that includes words of encouragement to “facilitate students’ learning process” or “encourage students to ask any question, including questions that suggest a lack of knowledge or inability to understand the problem and approach its solution.” One teacher noted: “The encouragement I give when a group of students try to help a single student who is having difficulty solving a given task motivates them to feel comfortable, to keep asking questions without fear, and continue to address, assist, and support other students.” Teachers also mentioned the emotional support and personal caring they expressed in their written discourse. For example, “I use smiles and positive emojis to bring the students closer to the group”; “I try to motivate them with words of encouragement”; “From time to time I initiate a private conversation with students who have not been active in the group for a long time and ask how they are doing.”

Seven (out of the 24) teachers felt that the anonymity involved helped meet student’s emotional needs because not knowing the others personally put them more at ease asking basic questions: “The others do not know the student who is asking”; “There is no fear of being evaluated by others”; “Students feel more comfortable expressing themselves and asking in the Bagroup WhatsApp than in their school group”; “They could ask without being afraid of being evaluated by the teacher.”

Also mentioned was the 24/7 availability: six teachers felt that the Bagroup environment contributed to learners’ emotional needs by allowing “peer learning or receiving support 24/7” … “whenever a student has difficulty solving an exercise” or “needs help in understanding.”

Other comments: 14 cited peer learning as an advantage “it is a good framework to reinforce and support learning”; “students understand the difficulties other students in the group have”; seven pointed to the advantage of having a caring teacher, five mentioned identification with the other group members, and four cited the advantage of learning from their own mistakes and those of the other students in the group.

Factors that promote learning

Table 3 presents the distribution of answers in the second category.

Table 3 Levels of teachers’ agreement with statements relating to factors in the Bagroup WhatsApp environment that promote learning

Note that all the teachers agreed or somewhat agreed that the lesson setup with Bagroup was quite different than a regular lesson, yet believed the WhatsApp platform would probably become an integral tool for future mathematics instruction. They also all pointed out that the experience had improved their own knowledge about the technologies available for teaching math.

The qualitative analysis revealed a number of factors that the teachers believed enhanced learning compared to a regular classroom. Some were related to “emotional needs,” such as the abundant support provided to by teacher and peers. Sixteen (out of the 24) believed that heavy use of words of encouragement helped boost students’ active participation and encouraged them to ask questions and share difficulties. Nine teachers reported that they took the trouble to send private messages to struggling students to encourage them to participate more actively. Some teachers (9) suggested that teaching–learning mainly through written messages is a good way to support students according to their area of difficulty: “The students’ written answers allow me to identify all the subtleties in their lack of understanding and make it easier for me to help and give them opportunities to sharpen their understanding. This does not happen so often in a regular classroom.”

Five teachers suggested that learning in this environment leads to self-efficacy and motivation: “When a student receives an answer that is specific to their difficulty, they can continue to practice and achieve success”; “quick feedback improves their belief in their ability to succeed in mathematics”; “working every day in the afternoons and evenings prevented them from ‘disconnecting’ from their math studies [and to invest more time and effort in learning].”

With respect to the difference in the lesson setup between WhatsApp and the regular classroom, the teachers pointed out several factors that promoted better learning with Bagroup. Learning was more accurate because all communication was written: “In the classroom, student’s verbal responses are often given quickly and spontaneously and can interfere with other students’ listening or thinking. Here, it’s the opposite. Written responses require at least a few moments of contemplation.” Synchronous lessons require the teacher to carefully prepare the lesson with a variety of digital materials, dynamic applets, and explanatory sheets, and to become better organized. As one teacher stated in the interview, “you have to carefully organize all your materials in advance, decide how and in which order to present them, and what questions to ask to allow progressively teaching the topic, because you can’t see or hear the students.”

One teacher wrote, “After the synchronous live lessons, the students actually expressed gratitude for the written material and explanations. This never happened to me in a regular class.”

Related to the concept of availability, teachers mentioned that the uploaded learning and teaching materials, and all relevant explanations were constantly available because “everything is written and available anytime”; the availability of “learning materials from a variety of schools that suggest different solutions to a given task”; and the 24/7 availability of other students in the group. Similar in concept was the transparency of the learning-teaching processes “because all solutions, explanations are available to all those participating in the group.” Also, 21 teachers mentioned the accessibility that all students had to a mobile phone, meaning that they could participate in the teaching–learning process anywhere.

Four teachers were so pleased with the Bagroup setup that they reported transferring the idea to their regular classroom at school. “In my first year in the project, I started using a similar WhatsApp environment in my classrooms outside my regular teaching hours because I recognized the value of the support students received through this environment especially when they try to solve tasks at home without success.”

Factors that inhibit learning

Table 4 presents the distribution of answers related to this category. The main problems involved the inability to teach mathematics over such a platform and the inability to generate collaboration.

Table 4 Levels of teachers’ agreement with statements concerning factors in the Bagroup WhatsApp environment that inhibit learning

Qualitative analysis revealed a number of factors – often the “other side” of the advantages listed above – that seemed to “sabotage” the teachers: half of the teachers pointed to anonymity, 24/7 availability, group heterogeneity, and technological aspects as hindrances. Another factor was their unfamiliarity with how to conduct the learning as they were in for face-to-face teaching in school.

The anonymity was a hindrance as it did not allow them to “read” the students: “It is harder to communicate when you do not see a face”; “In the classroom, the way a student looks can tell me whether they understand; in WhatsApp it’s not clear to me if my explanation was satisfactory because I can’t see or hear them. It is only written communication”; “In my face-to-face lesson, I can see how the students respond to my explanation … if they are confused or bored or frustrated, I can react accordingly to gain their attention and collaboration. In WhatsApp this is missing”; “It is impossible to see where the student is going wrong if he does not share it [in the group].” A similar problem was the “inability to hear the students’ tone of voice, whether it is hesitant or confident.” Six teachers said that the lack of face-to-face contact was a problem for the students, too: “Some students need to meet in person or focused attention, which is difficult to achieved in the WhatsApp environment.”

This also was a hindrance to generating collaboration (11 the teachers reported that the lack of familiarity between the group members reduced some students’ desire to cooperate) as was the 24/7 factor: “… I did not meet all the students at the same time because each student would show up when convenient,” “Students’ learning hours do not always coincide.” Six teachers suggested that students were less enthusiastic about learning because “learning in an online group with multiple participants allows them to be passive and effortlessly get the solutions to the problems from the other students.”

The heterogeneity was also mentioned: “Because the students have different levels of understanding, situations were created where a strong student sends his solution to the group, and the weaker students, who have not even figured out how to get started on the problem, are left behind.” This also affected the pace of teaching and learning: “I found my teaching was slower because the struggling students dictate the pace of the lesson; the advanced students end up leaving the session because they already understand, and the lesson gets too boring for them.” Also reflecting the problem of heterogeneity: “there are learning gaps between the students in the group” and “the different needs of each student in the group made it difficult to get them to cooperate.”

The technological aspect was mentioned frequently as a hindrance. The structure of the WhatsApp environment, particularly the disorderly sequence of multiple messages that appear—often very rapidly—on the screen and the difficulty in tracking the one-dimensional stream of verbal messages: “the students often missed an important, essential text written by the teacher or one of the students”; “The messages are disordered and the inability to sort or chain a sequence of messages makes it difficult to conduct oneself”; “It’s sometimes really hard to find a message with vital information within the multiplicity of messages”; “The multiplicity of messages does not always allow answering and helping every student. Not every question gets addressed”; and “the mathematical materials were not easily accessible to the students.”

Another important factor was that some mathematical content simply cannot be explained via WhatsApp and the keyboard makes it difficult to write mathematical notation: “It’s a problem to explain topics that have multiple mathematical signs, or geometry and trigonometry, where the notation of angles is required.” The problem with expressing mathematical ideas in a totally written environment came up time and time again. Besides the keyboard challenge, teachers noted that it is often very hard “to express oneself in writing to explain things [compared to drawing on a board].” Fully a quarter of the teachers reported “difficulty in deciphering verbal text” and others mentioned the difficulty in explaining more complex topics: “Sometimes you have to demonstrate things physically, such as when dealing with 3D, and it is difficult to do this on WhatsApp, even with video recordings.” Also mentioned was the amount of time it took to type out the answers and explanations (half of the teachers cited this problem).

Discussion

In the current study, we presented a model for integrating WhatsApp as a support group that any high school student in our country could join irrespective of their social, socioeconomic, or geographic situation, without regard to prior knowledge, and at no additional cost whatsoever; participation was based solely on the level of the matriculation exam they aimed to take. It allows equal opportunities for all in which “each person has a chance to ask questions, make statements, and express his or her ideas” (Chapin et al., 2013, p. 69). The Bagroup project took part outside formal school hours and gave students the opportunity to accelerate their learning and understanding processes and receive quick responses to any difficulties encountered in solving tasks and doing their homework. The current study emphasizes the teachers’ perception on how learning and teaching in this framework enabled “equity,” that is to say, fairness in providing students access to extra help on individual or group levels based on need alone and unrelated to their (financial) circumstances (Espinoza, 2007).

General observations

Because learning opportunities are created through the interactions of (at least) tasks, teaching, and students, measures of learning opportunities will need to develop through analyzing interactions among these factors and describing how some interactions help students achieve a specified learning goal more than other (Cai et al., 2020. p. 19).

Building upon Cai’s idea, the current study offers a unique perspective on teachers’ perceptions of the learning-teaching processes in the Bagroup project environment where groups of students who did not personally know each other cooperated and interacted with each other based purely on their motivation to solve difficult mathematics problems, and which took place in a unique and innovative supportive pedagogical and technological online environment accompanied by a skilled math teacher. Learning in the Bagroup project environment occurred in parallel with learning in the formal education system in their regular school classroom. Learning opportunities were immediate, and the constantly available student–student and student–teacher communication in the group meant that any problem in understanding that one student shared was followed by various solutions and explanations, all offered without fear of making a mistake or fear of being evaluated by teachers or peers. The effect was to encourage the student to continue and invest more time and effort in the learning process.

Cai et al.’s call for learning opportunities based on interactions between task, teaching, and students, joins that of Greenhow and Askari’s (2017), who protested the lack of basic studies that focus on learning and teaching in innovative technological environments. The findings of this current study add another layer to the knowledge infrastructure about teaching–learning processes in the WhatsApp environment by presenting an innovative model that illustrates how the WhatsApp platform can be integrated into teaching–learning processes on a national level. As opposed to studies that present WhatsApp as an additional online environment to supplement the school classroom and where students and teacher know each other (Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Konyefa & Nwanze, 2020; Nida et al., 2020), this study presents a learning and teaching model in which the WhatsApp group that students join (on their own initiative) is a distinct support group that is part of a national online network and that runs in parallel to their formal education in school.

The OECD “2030 learning framework” challenges stakeholders “to think ahead and foster innovative learning environments that focus on inclusive student growth and facilitate changes in both education systems and the larger ecosystem” (OECD, 2018b, p.1). The results of the current study highlight the teaching–learning processes that the Bagroup environment has for providing answers to student’s social-emotional needs. As teachers perceive it, it is a real-time, multi-student forum that promotes timely and helpful responses as a result of teacher-student and student–student emphatic written discourse, which allows respectful communication that satisfies social-emotional needs (which corroborates the results of Joswick & Taylor, 2022; Weissberg et al., 2015). Students can participate without fear, and each student’s ideas are taken seriously by their teachers and peers. Everyone has the opportunity to ask questions, make statements, and express their ideas, which has been shown to be necessary for a successful learning atmosphere (Chapin et al., 2013). Such a framework promotes social awareness and communication skills (Joswick & Taylor, 2022; Sears et al., 2022) and relies greatly on teachers’ support and encouragement according to the students’ needs and the development of learners’ self-efficacy. The supportive written communication that can be attained via the WhatsApp platform allows teachers to meet their students’ specific needs and to efficiently track progress.

The fact that the anonymity prevents teachers from being judgmental fosters better support and empathy for the students. This is especially important when a student has a question they feel indicates a lack of basic knowledge. In a regular classroom, they might feel inhibited to ask such a question out of fear or embarrassment in revealing their lack of knowledge to the teacher (and their peers).

Students preparing for the mathematics matriculation exam need unconditional support that will allow them to continually progress and not give up due to the inability to solve some task and the frustration that ensues. It is important to note that the teachers reported that they invested much effort to give students confidence. For example, teachers encouraged students who initially felt embarrassed to ask questions in the forum to correspond with them privately and then gradually led them on to correspondence within the group.

The contribution of “Availability”

The findings of the current study highlight how the availability factor can promote learning on a number of levels: availability of technology, knowledge, and resources; availability to all regardless of circumstances (equity); and availability without regard to time or place.

Having the technology “in the palm of our hand” allowed students to receive timely support tailored to their difficulties, and hence develop their sense of self-efficacy to cope with difficult mathematical tasks. As one teacher pointed out in the interview: “When students receive quick responses to a specific problem, they do not remain ‘stuck.’ They can follow a learning continuum to successful understanding, motivating them to increase their efforts. This cycle then repeats itself.” These findings are consistent with previous studies (see, Moreno-Guerrero et al., 2020; Naidoo and Kopung (2020); ; ; Yeo, 2014) in which it was reported that pre-service teachers find that the WhatsApp environment fosters faster learning and allows ubiquitous mathematical learning. Indeed, the mathematics teachers in this study, who were teaching students whom they had not met personally, identified a similar contribution that “availability” made both to the students and themselves as teachers.

This is fostered, in particular, by the continuous availability of 1) a wide variety of learning materials and 2) the written (chat) dialogues between peers and teacher. The abundance of learning resources was the result of students sharing learning materials from their lessons in school and other sources or because the teacher presiding over the group offered widgets and explanatory pages developed for the project, both during the synchronous lesson and when addressing students’ expressed difficulties. The availability of the chat dialogues meant that all the students, including those who did not participate in a synchronous lesson, had access to all the written documentation (discussions, questions raised, suggested solutions, etc.).

Furthermore, the teachers who participated in the current study are convinced that learning in the Bagroup environment meets the policy recommendations of the OECD (2016) for making mathematics available to all: “foster motivation to learn mathematics, also after school hours” and “reduce the impact of socio-economic status on students’ opportunities to learn” (p. 203). They noted that the availability of mathematical knowledge (both at individual and group levels) without regard to a student’s circumstances (e.g., financial resources) and based only on needs promotes equity and inclusion (Ainscow, 2020; Espinoza, 2007).

Another factor noted was that the majority of teachers reported that the “availability” of information fostered by the WhatsApp platform allowed them to efficiently track student progress and identify where students were having difficulty. They felt that this helped meet students’ emotional needs because it gave them the opportunity to praise students for work well done and provide appropriate and timely responses to any difficulties.

Social-emotional learning

Based on the teachers’ responses, it seems that they believe that the Bagroup learning environment improves SEL, especially since they made the effort to provide a lot of encouragement and praise to raise the students’ self-confidence. This is important for motivating learning processes and improving their feelings of competence (Deci & Ryan, 2012; Durgungoz & Durgungoz, 2022; Ryan & Deci, 2000).

The Bagroup project environment also enabled both positive and autonomous learning, which have been discussed in earlier studies (see, e.g., Cayubit, 2022; Reeve, 2006; Rusticus et al., 2023). These occur when learning conditions allow, inter alia, an optimal emotional climate between learners, thus leading to effective communication and positive relationships. Exposure to the thinking patterns of others leads to improved critical thinking and learning strategies, which can motivate them to invest more time and effort in their studies. Teachers with good social-emotional skills, that is, teachers who use empathy, encouragement, praise, personal response, and a caring attitude; who are non-judgmental and alert to students’ difficulties; and who encourage good teacher–student relationships, will foster an effective learning atmosphere that encourage SEL.

Anonymity

The findings pointed to another significant factor that teachers believed promotes learning, and this is the anonymity embedded in the Bagroup format, which allows students to ask any question without fear of making mistakes or being judged. This is supported by a study that suggested that the anonymity of students in a WhatsApp learning group enables them to ignore social barriers that exist in formal education: everyone feels comfortable asking and responding to the questions offered in the group (Kizel, 2019).

The current study also highlighted another interesting aspect related to teacher-student anonymity in the Bagroup environment: teachers found that it allowed them to be more empathetic during the discourse. As one teacher said:

It is easier for me to be empathetic to students who I do not know in a WhatsApp group compared to students in my class at school, whom I know better and am aware of the degree of their investment in learning, whether they have done homework, and more. I am much more judgmental of my students in my class, whom I have been accompanying for several years, than I was to the Bagroup students, whom I accompanied over a shorter period of time.

The anonymity inherent in the Bagroup project environment also enabled students to participate as passive learners who could observe others’ learning processes and experiences and, as a result, adopt new behaviors, knowledge, and skills (as suggested by Bandura, 2001; Li et al., 2023). By observing the written discourses of more active participants, they are exposed to various difficulties and challenges as well as to behaviors that others adopt when coping with challenging tasks. This, we believe, is also crucial for SEL.

However, despite the advantages inherent in the anonymity, teachers reported that it also posed a challenge with respect to managing processes. Lack of eye contact and personal familiarity with the students made it difficult for teachers to know if the students properly understood what they were taught. It was also a challenge to expand the circle of active participants engaged in the group discourse. This was evidenced by observing the groups: the number of students who actively participated (addressed questions from colleagues, shared ideas or ways of solving, shared additional materials, etc.) was small relative to the number of students in each group. Some students participated minimally, only offering a few words of thanks for an explanation, the solution to a task, or a clarification of a mathematical concept. In other words, most of the students in the group participated passively and at best as observer learners (Li et al., 2023), that is, learning from the experience of others. This, despite the efforts of the teachers to encourage students to participate more actively, sometimes by contacting them personally.

Motivation

In this study indicate 20 out of the 24 teachers agreed fully or to some extent that the students who learned in the Bagroup project invested more time and effort in learning math than students in the regular class. This suggests that these students are more motivated to learn. This is in line with studies (Deci & Ryan, 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2000) that suggested that such conditions allow students to develop autonomy and better learning and communication processes, while having a sense of belonging, thereby developing their motivation to continue investing in learning. In the current study, the direct available interaction between students and between them and the teacher led to more active learning where the learner is at the center and can be supported and monitored during the learning process. This adds to the findings of Moreno-Guerrero et al. (2020) which focused on both pre-service teachers and high school students.

The technology also enables students access to a rich, varied collection of material that can serve as a platform for exploration and deeper understanding of the content being studied: “the more knowledge that technology allows students to search and access, the more important becomes deep understanding and the capacity to make sense of content” (Schleicher, 2019, p. 14).

Student collaboration

With respect to the issue of student collaboration, as noted above, almost four-fifths of the teachers stated that generating collaboration between students in the WhatsApp group was much more challenging than in a regular class. Some teachers suggested that one reason for this might be that the students in the Bagroup project felt less committed to learning because it was not a formal group and because it did not involve any of the assessment processes, mandatory attendance, and so forth that are a part of the regular school classroom. Also, they felt that since the students were not committed to a specific schedule of learning time-wise, it imposed difficulty in maintaining continuous communication.

This reported difficulty is in contrast to the findings of Nsabayezu et al. (2020) who reported that of 18 chemistry secondary school teachers who taught via WhatsApp during the Covid-19 pandemic, 90% believed that student–student and student–teacher interactions increased as a result and that with respect to effecting student collaboration, only 16% reported that they had found this difficult. Half of them did not see this as a problem at all while the remaining 33% considered it only slightly problematic. However, the Nsabayezu study concerned the use of WhatsApp in regular school classes, where all the students knew each other and were therefore more comfortable with communication and active participation.

The results of the present study concerning the problem of collaboration also contrasts with the findings of Morsidi et al. (2021) that showed that university students who utilize WhatsApp have high levels of communication skills. However, perhaps teachers and university students, being more mature than secondary school students are better able to communicate with each other and are more conscious of the support they require for the challenges of university studies.

Virtual community of practice (vCoP)

One important aspect is the issue of a virtual community of practice (vCoP). vCoPs require participants to (1) have a shared domain of interest, (2) engage in joint activities and discussions to help one another, share information, and build relationships; and (3) develop a shared repertoire of resources and experiences (Moodley, 2019; Wenger, 1998). The Bagroup project can be recognized as a short-term vCoP as it satisfies these requirements: the students share an interest (success in matriculation), work jointly, and learn from each other.

Nevertheless, it is important to realize that the purpose of the project was to engage students in a three-month, intensive learning process to prepare for the exam, and the relationships between the students were primarily for the purpose of promoting learning. Thus, the correspondence between the members of the group, even though it included empathy and mutual support, did not lead to connections beyond learning.

Factors that hinder learning

Alongside the advantages that promote teaching and learning, the current findings also indicate factors that hinder learning and challenge teachers. For example, there was a consensus among teachers that the lesson setup in WhatsApp is considerably different than that of a regular lesson, and that the internet chat platform is clearly unlike that of frontal teaching (or compared to internet platforms such as with ZOOM), since all answers must be composed in writing. The majority of teachers stated that they had difficulty explaining some content over the WhatsApp platform and that some mathematical content simply does not lend itself to explanation over WhatsApp.

While anonymity was mentioned as an advantage by some teachers, others claimed that it inhibited learning because they were unable to “read” their students and thereby identify difficulties and distress that were expressed non-verbally. These findings are consistent with those of Nida et al. (2020), which indicate that direct teaching (face-to-face in the classroom environment) is more effective in the context of student anxiety compared to a blended format that involves learning in a WhatsApp environment or learning in a reverse classroom with the same group of students using a variety of teaching methods (which the researchers called “station rotation”). In addition, anonymity makes cooperation between students difficult and inhibits collaboration.

Heterogeneity is another factor that can hinder learning. Since both advanced and slower students are in one single group, it is difficult for the teacher to present a lesson suitable for all, and the more advanced students progress faster while struggling students try to keep up.

With respect to the teachers’ workload, Durgungoz and Durgungoz (2022) discussed the added labor a teacher will have as a result of interacting with students over WhatsApp. This was no different in the current study, as the teachers were required to moderate and teach a WhatsApp group of about 100 students in addition to their regular role as math teachers in a school. Thus, they had to manage this diverse (new to some) learning environment and prepare suitable learning resources or adapt teaching materials to the digital platform, all the while monitoring the continuous written discourse, answering questions, building a supportive environment, and identifying students’ needs. The coordinators of the project recognized the extra workload it would entail, and tried to alleviate it by offering meaningful support: The pedagogical coordinator helped by creating the syllabi, monitoring the learning-teaching processes, suggesting appropriate digital teaching material (power-point presentations that explain the topics, a variety of exercises and solutions, links to applications and videos, etc.). The administrative coordinator, alongside a team of experts, released the teacher from responsibility for all the technical and technological aspects of organizing the groups, thus allowing teachers the freedom to concentrate on the learning-teaching processes. The teachers also received remuneration for the extra workload the project entailed.

This study shows that as a result of receiving appropriate support, the teachers managed to cope quite well despite the extra workload and responsibility they had to assume. This is something that the coordinators of future innovative technological learning environments need to keep in mind when planning similar platforms or networks. If both teachers and students are given proper support and a suitable environment, such endeavors can prove successful.

Conclusion

Despite the challenges, all the teachers believed that WhatsApp environment (or similar) will become an integral tool for teaching math in the future. They all agreed that teaching through WhatsApp improved their mastery of the technologies available for teaching mathematics: TK (sharing files of various types, photographing and scanning solutions and uploading them to the environment, etc.) and TPK (because they were forced to become familiar with innovative teaching–learning processes applicable to this environment to teach, explain, and present mathematical processes and concepts) (see also, Koehler & Mishra, 2009; Schmidt et al., 2009). They also pointed out that it forces them to be more focused and organized in their preparation.

In addition, the findings of the study indicate that teaching and learning in the Bagroup project environment enabled teachers to monitor the students’ learning processes, thereby increasing the potential of the environment for formative assessment of the learning processes and providing appropriate attention as part of the process of structuring the students’ knowledge. This is in line with the findings of Torres-Madroñero et al.’s study (2020) but on a wider scale.

Nevertheless, the WhatsApp environment did pose some challenges in teaching mathematics, in particular given the difficulty in writing mathematical notation and because the written discourse is not always a fitting alternative for verbal discourse to fully explain some concepts. Furthermore, although teaching in the WhatsApp environment allows helping a large number of students simultaneously and offering multiple explanations and reasonings, it falls short when it comes to identifying students’ difficulties. The teachers also mentioned the adaptations they were forced to make to their teaching processes because synchronous instruction in the WhatsApp environment differs from synchronous face-to-face instruction (including ZOOM), and that they had to be more focused and organized in their preparation. The international education community has been occupied with the need to prepare high school graduates for the constantly changing unpredictable world of the twenty-first century. The OECD (2018a, 2019) published calls to enhance “21st-century competencies” and recommended integrating new methods into teaching traditional disciplines such as mathematics. The 21st-century competencies include the capability to think critically, reason logically, function as a member of a team working to achieve a common goal, exhibit creativity, and clearly express innovative ideas, etc. In the current study, the teachers perceived that the students did indeed demonstrate these competencies when problem-solving in the WhatsApp Bagroup environment.

Given the results of this study, it may be concluded that learning and teaching in a social network environment is complex process. Integrating a social network into the learning experience might be better done as a supportive framework for—and not in place of—formal learning. In addition, further ways for delivering the content should be considered, such as (as recommended by Dyson et al., 2015) a preliminary synchronous or face-to-face meeting to allow students to formulate their understanding.

In addition to providing a model for online learning, our findings may lead to discovering learning-teaching processes that have not yet been identified and that can enable better blended learning, more support to students, and expanded learning opportunities. Similar studies may help advance the integration of technologies in general—and the social network in particular—into formal education that can better solve ongoing educational problems and enhance prevalent educational norms and methods.

Suggestions for future research

The Bagroup project continues to this day.

Follow-up studies might focus on students’ perceptions of the project and comparing teachers’ and students’ perceptions. The model presented in this study could also be examined in a municipal and/or district setting. We invite researchers in mathematics education in other countries to set up a similar process to investigate this concept from an international perspective and share their observations with others.

The findings of the current study indicate a link between SEL and anonymous learning, as it can provide a safe, non-judgmental space and bring about learning by observing how others cope with solving tasks. Since a search of the literature did not turn up any research that focuses on links between SEL and anonymous learning, we suggest that examining the effects of anonymous learning in social networks on student SEL is a fertile area for future study.