Which strategy is identified as improving recall in teaching?

• A. Repetition
• B. Keep lecture at or under 20 minutes
• C. Rule of 3
• D. Allow for student-directed learning

Answer: (B)

Memory recall in teaching improves when information is presented in short, focused segments. Keeping a lecture to about 20 minutes aligns with how attention and working memory work: as time passes, attention tends to wane and cognitive load increases, making it harder to encode new material. By delivering content in brief chunks, you reduce fatigue, preserve the quality of encoding, and create natural opportunities for retrieval practice—quick checks, questions, or summaries between segments—that strengthen recall.

So, while strategies like repeating material, organizing ideas in groups of three, or building in student-directed activities can all support learning, the most direct impact on recall in a lecture setting comes from maintaining short, manageable blocks of instruction and interspersing opportunities to process and retrieve what was just learned.