Vision
Reals and Rationals was founded in 2016 with the vision of imparting mathematical thinking in a human way.
What is Mathematical Thinking?
Mathematics is the language of precise deductive reasoning. Concepts are its vocabulary and deductive reasoning is the structure connecting the concepts. Mathematical thinking is fluency in this language.
A student with developed mathematical thinking displays confidence when tackling diverse problems. When presented with unfamiliar or non-trivial problems, they make meaningful progress by constructing their own original methods—rather than relying on memorized procedures meant only for canned problems.
What is the human way for mathematics?
In today’s AI age, where machines autonomously solve frontier math problems, do humans need to do mathematics? It is important for humans to evolve in their math level so that they see AI as a tool, set its direction, comprehend and translate its results.
This evolution to a higher math level succeeds only if humans thrive in the learning process—and they thrive when they feel the ‘aha’ moments of understanding concepts and solving problems.
Our Curriculum & Pedagogy
With this vision in mind, our teaching rests on two primary pillars:
- Conceptual Depth: We motivate every concept by answering the “why” behind it. We prioritize building strong intuitions for the concepts. Intuition results in understanding the essence of a concept. We also bring out connections between different concepts, as seeing these relationships deepens understanding of all the concepts involved.
- Active Expression: We require students to articulate their reasoning step-by-step. Communicating mathematical thought processes explicitly helps students internalize concepts and master the deductive reasoning methodology.
Since 2016, we have used these pillars to successfully guide middle school, high school, and university students in mathematics.
Besides content related to our teaching, our website hosts a blog and a collection of our own hand-crafted challenge problems.
Leadership
Reals and Rationals was founded and is directed by Sandeep Yaddula. Sandeep has a master’s degree in Mathematics from University of Maryland. Sandeep also has a master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, which he used for over 20 years in various engineering roles, prior to focusing full-time on Reals and Rationals. Read more about Sandeep at this LinkedIn page.
Testimonials
Please read here what our students and student-parents think of us.
Contact us
To know more about our math classes or our annual math problem-solving series, or to get notified on periodic content that gets published, please write to us at: assistant@realsandrationals.com