I recently reversed roles from Instructor in my class to student when I had a speaker come in to talk for 1 hour. I was amazed/ashamed about how my attention wandered after several minutes of lecture. It is a topic that I am interested in, I like the person, she had slides (though over 1 hour only showed 4 of them) so why was I having such a hard time. After reflecting on this issue today I was reminded of the book by John Medina – Brain Rules #4 Attention. How it is important for the speaker to re-engage the participants every 9 minutes. This could be an activity, emotional connection, just something to give the brain, body, emotions a jolt to bring the focus back in. If you want to learn more visit http://www.brainrules.net/attention