Transitions in the Classroom ("Dead Air")

Hello everyone,

I used to work as a radio announcer (really), and one of the things that could get me fired was "dead air." (The other was playing opera on a rock station. Really.) "Dead air" means the radio is on, but there is no sound coming out. To avoid dead air, one had to overlap transitions. One song is fading out while the announcer comes in; another song is fading in while the announcer is finishing a previous announcement. If songs ended "dead" (suddenly), then the announcer had to be ready to immediately start talking.

Frankly speaking, we all knew that dead air meant lost customers. Someone had done some research on how long a listener would hang around before switching the station, and it wasn't long.

The application to education lies in the transitions. It's not so much silence in the classroom as it is activity.

If you get it down well, you are transitioning from one activity to the next with no "dead air." The warm up happens while the roll is being taken; one activity is finishing while the papers for the next activity are being handed out; direct instruction segues immediately into guided practice; and (ideally) class ends just as the bell rings (not five minutes before or 60 seconds after).

Work on your transitions. Know that when you have "dead air" you lose your audience. It takes more effort to get an audience back than it does to keep them.

Jeff Combe