Faculty Planning for Distance Teaching

Abstract How faculty in higher education plan instruction is an area about which little is known. The purpose of this study was to describe instructional planning by faculty teaching adult learners via interactive telecommunications technology and to identify their principal concerns when designing distance instruction. Qualitative methods were used to collect and analyze data on planning by eleven full‐time faculty members teaching on an audio‐graphic distance network. Their distance instruction planning process was characterized by three features: term rather than day‐to‐day planning, a primary emphasis on content rather than process, and reliance on the syllabus as the focal point of planning.