How to get students to ask for help

Asking for help in front of a class costs something. You admit you're behind, you interrupt, everyone can see you, and you may wait a while for an answer. Students weigh that against the cost of staying stuck, and many decide to stay stuck.

The research says the students who avoid asking are often the ones who need help most. In a study of 516 sixth graders, Allison Ryan, Margaret Gheen and Carol Midgley found that students who doubted their own ability were more likely to avoid asking for help. The link was weaker in classrooms where teachers saw caring for students' social and emotional needs as part of their job: the teacher's manner changed how risky asking felt.

Adults are no different. When William Lammers ran focus groups with 75 college students about why they don't seek help from their instructors, the reasons included intimidation and the fear of looking foolish. What made it easier was an instructor who seemed approachable, encouraging and caring.

So "any questions?" at the end of an explanation rarely works. It asks for a public confession, at a moment you chose, in front of everyone. The fixes below change what asking costs.

The best help signal takes one second, needs no words, and lets the student keep working while they wait.

• A sticky note or a card. Greg Wilson describes giving every learner two coloured sticky notes, one for "done" and one for "I need help", to put on their laptop. It works better than raised hands because it's discreet, so people actually use it, and they can keep typing while their flag is up.
• A cup or a coloured card on the desk, turned to red for "I need help", does the same in a room without laptops.
• A button on their screen, in a class where everyone works on a laptop.

Whatever you choose, take away the raised arm. A student holding a hand in the air can't work, and everyone in the room can see who is stuck.

Public asking is the expensive part, so keep it between the student and you. A note on a laptop is less public than a hand, and a message only you can read is less public still.

Kitsantas and Chow asked more than 470 college students in traditional, blended and online courses how they preferred to seek help. Students in courses with an online part reported feeling less threatened about asking and sought help more, and students preferred electronic means of asking. A private channel matters most to the students who fear being seen.

Privacy also helps the student who has a question they think is stupid. Typed to the teacher alone, "where do I save the file?" costs nothing.

Students read the room for what counts as success. If the class seems to be about who finishes first, a question marks you as slow. If it's about learning to do the thing, a question is part of the work.

Stuart Karabenick studied this in large college classes, more than 1,700 students in chemistry and psychology courses. Where students felt the class emphasised understanding and improving, they were more likely to approach the teacher for help and less likely to avoid it. Where they felt it emphasised not looking incompetent, avoidance went up.

You set that tone with a few sentences, and they cost nothing:

• Before a hard step: "Most people get stuck on step 3. That's why it's here. Press for help as soon as you're stuck."
• When you make a mistake while demonstrating: say what went wrong and how you noticed. A teacher who gets an error and reads it calmly shows what to do with one.
• When someone asks: "Good, that one trips up a lot of people." Never "as I said earlier".

Don't praise speed. "Wow, Dana's already done" tells the other 29 they are behind.

Some students don't ask because they can't say what's wrong. "It doesn't work" feels like a non-question. Give them a pattern: what I tried, what I expected, what I see instead. "I ran the cell, I expected a table, I get a red error on line 4" is easy to write and fast to answer.

A short list of reasons to pick from helps too: I get an error, I'm lost, it's too fast. A student who can't put the problem into words can still tap one, and the list tells everyone that being lost is an ordinary reason to ask.

The first answer decides whether there's a second request. A student who asked and got a sigh, a long wait, or an answer delivered to the whole room, won't ask again soon.

• Get there fast. Use a help queue so you take requests in order and the quiet student isn't skipped.
• Thank them for asking. Especially the first time.
• Don't take the keyboard. Point at the line, ask what they expected, and let them type the fix.
• Close the loop. Before you leave, check it works, and make it easy to ask again if it breaks a minute later.
• When three people ask the same thing, explain it to the whole room without naming who asked.

Even in a class where asking is cheap, some students won't. They sit on a step much longer than everyone else and say nothing. Don't wait for them: once most of the class is done with a step, look for who isn't, and check in with them privately. "How's step 3 going? Happy to take a look." is an invitation, not an accusation. Some will be fine and just slower. Some were stuck the whole time.

That check-in is also how a student learns that asking is safe. The next time, many ask first. How to tell which students are stuck covers reading the room for them.

In Workshopy, every step has a Need help button beside Done on the student's screen. Pressing it opens a small form, "Ask your teacher for help", with quick reasons (I get an error, I'm lost, Too fast for me, Something else), an optional note, and the line "Private — only your teacher sees this." The student's screen then says "Your teacher has your request" and "Keep working"; the button now reads Asked, and pressing it again takes the request back if they fix it themselves.

Other students never see the request. On your screen the student's square in the room turns amber and the Help tab lists requests oldest first, each with the student's note and Resolve. When you resolve it, the student is told and gets a Still stuck button that asks again in one tap. Students can also write to you privately from the chat's Teacher view, and your answer reaches only them.

For the students who don't ask, the room marks anyone who has been on a step much longer than most of the class and hasn't asked: a dashed amber ring on their square, and a group in Help called "Might need you · didn't ask", with "Only you see this. Students are never told." Check in opens a private message to them with a suggested first line to edit before you send it, and They're fine clears the mark. After the class, the report shows, for each step, how many asked for help, how long they waited, and who took much longer without asking.