Consequences of the method

Hence the reasons for the authoritarian approach: students have a tendency not to prepare for the class. Dean John Thomas says: "If you use a volunteer method the non-thinkers just sit there. Yet in order to justify the time spent you have to get as many as possible involved in puzzling over the question. "Not only must students be encouraged to think, but as many students as possible must be made to think, otherwise straight lecturing would be a better use of the time." Thus Prof Palmer forces students to prepare Dean John Thomas has reverted to more of a volunteer system, in which he asks questions of the whole class and waits for a reply. If no-one replies there might be an "eloquent silence" of up to ten minutes. However, he realises that this reduces participation to a core of volunteers, which is undesirable and probably doesn't justify the waste in time.