Donuts Are The Answer

Twenty years ago, I was a teaching assistant for an intro-level Computer Science course, which meant I led a twice-weekly class of twenty students to supplement the much larger lectures (and graded their assignments). Most students with programming experience tested out of this first class, so the ones who were left were true novices, and the material didn’t seem to come easily. 

The point of these smaller, additional classes was to let students ask questions on anything they didn’t understand from the lectures, but I had a class one semester that clearly had trouble with the material, but simply would not ask questions, nor volunteer answers. I’d go over the material they were clearly getting stuck on in their assignments, but there’s only so much help you can give when the class doesn’t engage.

So, one day, I brought in a big box of donuts and told the class:

Me: “Anyone who asks a question gets a donut.”

After a few long moments, a hand went up, meekly asking the question:

Student: “Can I have a donut?”

Yes, they got their donut. And that was apparently the icebreaker the whole class finally needed to start asking questions, because I got a lot of them after that. The donuts only continued for another week, but the class stayed thankfully engaged for the rest of the semester.