This study demonstrates how mathematical ideas can be developed through genuine applications to problems that are attractive to the learners of mathematics due to consistency with their life experiences. To this end, the paper provides several examples of digital instruments both commonly available and designed by the authors with the goal to prepare schoolchildren of different ages to mathematize basic models of computer science and engineering. The mathematization includes construction and optimization of the models by using big ideas of mathematics at the level of common sense alone as a grade-appropriate prerequisite to their formal description. Also, the paper examines computer systems that can be depicted as the prototypes of artificial intelligence since, in the context of education, they can be used as tools enabling both motivation and support of one’s conceptual development rather than simply a means to carry out thinking for the learners of mathematics. Finally, by referring to a few notable contributors to mathematical, educational, and psychological knowledgebase, this study argues for the merit of intuition in the digital age as a support system in the advancement of computational problem-solving techniques.
Abramovich et al. (Mon,) studied this question.