BUFFALO — When students are programming in Krista Sweckard’s class and their code is coming up with errors, they follow what she calls the rubber duck theory.

Sweckard is a computer science teacher at Buffalo High School. When errors pop up in their programs, students in Sweckard’s class must first talk it out with a rubber duck in the classroom before going to Sweckard for help. Usually, talking it out does the trick, but with 20 kids on 20 computers for 42 minutes, Sweckard said, it’s “not real good math.”