The book is based on lecture notes Larissa created while teaching large classes of STEM students at a University of widening access and embodies a systematic and efficient teaching method that marries modern evidence-based pedagogical findings with ideas that can be traced back to such educational and mathematical giants as Socrates and Euler. The courses, which incorporated Larissa's modules, had been accredited by several UK professional bodies, often after ascertaining that there was no correlation between quality of student degrees and quality of their qualifications on entry.