It seems like in every course I teach I end up spending some time on active listening. In the age of multi-tasking my students believe they can do many things at the same time, but I have to convince them that they are probably not doing any of the things very well. At least, not as well as they would if they do one at a time. A great exercise is I'll have two students read from different articles of a magazine at the same time for about 45 secs. I'll then ask the audience what the articles were about, usually not one person can give any detail beyond a word or two that they heard in each article. Then I'll have them pick one reader to listen to and sit up, make eye contact and really focus on the words the reader is saying. Then I will have the readers read again. This time when I ask what the articles are about the audience is usually able to give better summaries. They really get to experience the difference between hearing and actively listening. It really helps to build better classroom habits.