The Moore method is a deductive manner of instruction used in advanced mathematics courses. It is named after Robert Lee Moore, a famous topologist who first used a stronger version of the method at the University of Pennsylvania when he began teaching there in 1911. (Zitarelli, 2004)
The way the course is conducted varies from instructor to instructor, but the content of the course is usually presented in whole or in part by the students themselves. Instead of using a textbook, the students are given a list of definitions and, based on these, theorems which they are to prove and present in class, leading them through the subject material. The Moore method typically limits the amount of material that a class is able to cover, but its advocates claim that it induces a depth of understanding that listening to lectures cannot give.
F. Burton Jones, a student of Moore and a practitioner of his method, described it as follows:
The students were forbidden to read any book or article about the subject. They were even forbidden to talk about it outside of class. Hersh and John-Steiner (1977) claim that, "this method is reminiscent of a well-known, old method of teaching swimming called 'sink or swim' ".