The average person speaks between 100-200 words a minute, yet people can only actively listen at a rate of roughly 50 words a minute. Most people are able to retain between 10-20 percent of the information they heard four days earlier. Also, in classes of almost any size greater than 10 people, four students will account for 75 percent of the comments, he added. Despite those statistics, all is not lost. The key to getting students involved with learning is to make the classes more interactive, whether it's through pairing, bringing interesting visuals or providing analogies, Silberman said.
Students have to do something . . . to help improve their retention rates.