Students need to feel that it is psychologically "safe" to participate, to try out ideas, to be wrong as well as right. Your behavior is an important determinant in the establishment of a safe or comfortable climate. Learning, an active process, requires that the learner interact with ideas and materials. Constant teacher-talk, feeling compelled to comment on each student idea, deciding to be the final arbiter in decision-making processes, interrupting, controlling, and intimidating either through expertise, or the threat of grades - these are but some of the behaviors which prevent students from engaging in the active processes needed for significant (as distinguished from "rote") learning to take place. It is interesting to note the increased levels of student participation when instructors do not conceal the fact of their ignorance, when they sometimes hesitate about certain questions or information, when their responses are dictated more by an honest desire to assist the students than to demonstrate the extent of their own knowledge.