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ED 335 023 IR 015 190

AUTHOR Wolcott, Linda L.

TITLE A Qualitative Study of Teachers' Planning ofInstruction for Adult Learners in aTelecommunications-based Distance EducationEnvironment.

PUB DATE 91

NOTE 25p.; In: Proceedings of Selected ResearchPresentations at the Annual ConventLon of theAssociation for Educational Communications andTechnology; see IR 015 132.

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DESCRIPTORS *Adult Learning; *College Faculty; CourseDescriptions; Delivery Systems; *Distance Education;Higher Education; *Instructional Design; MediaAdaptation; *Planning; Qualitative Research; *TeacherDeveloped Materials; Telecommunications

IDENTIFIERS *Audiographics

ABSTRACTThis qualitative study investigated how 11 full-time

university faculty members planned live instruction for adultlearners in a telecommunications-based distance education setting.All of the subjects had taught the same courses in a traditionalsetting and had experience teaching distance courses. Students at8-11 sites in Utah and Colorado were linked with live instructionfrom a classroom at a state university in Utah. Instruction wasdelivered via two-way audio and one-way still image video signals viatelephone lines; daily UPS deliveries were used for the submissionand return of assignments and tests. Data were collected viasemi-structured interviews, observation of class sessions in theoriginating classroom, and analysis of planning documents andjournals pre-ared by the teachers. Three features were found tocharacterize the preactive planning process: (1) faculty engaged incourse or term planning as a front-end activity; (2) planning wasdriven by content and centered on the selection and sequencing ofsubject matter; and (3) distance planning focused on the developmentof an extended syllabus. Factors that influenced planning includedtime constraints; the medium of delivery; and faculty beliefs,attitudes, and concerns about the nature and conduct of instruction.It is noted that the resulting courses were retrofitted rather thanredesigned, and the paper concludes by suggesting that differencesbetween face-to-face instruction and the distance educationenvironment should be taken into account when plann%ng forinstruction in non-traditional settings with non-traditional

learners. (25 references) (BBM)

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'Ede:

A Qualitative Study of Teachers' Planning ofInstruction for AdultLearners in a Teleconununications-based Distance Education

Enviromnent

Author:

Linda L Wolcott

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

9

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

Michael R. Simonson

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF TEACHERS' PLANNINGOF INSTRUCTION FOR ADULT LEARNERS

IN A TELECOMMUNICATIONS-HASEDDISTANCE EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT

by

L3nda L. Wolcott, Ed.D.

According to Schön (1983), the context for much oftoday's professional practice constitutes "not problemsto be solved, but problematic situations characterizedby uncertainty, disorder, and indeterminacy" (p. 15-16)in which "p-oblems do not present themselves topractitionels as givens" (p. 40). Teaching at adistance presents educators with such a uniquesituation of practice.

With the growth of telecommunications technology,distance education has entered a new generation.Today, degree programs, training, and continuingprofessional education are often delivered to adultlearners by telecommunications technologies such astelephone, television, computer, and satellite. mesemedia allow learners who are physically separated fromtheir instructor, and often from one another, totranscend geographical distance. By providing forreal-time participation and immediate two-wayinteraction among participants, the application ofthese telecommunications media creates a unique form of

instruction and a unique situation of practice.Distance instruction differs contextually from

traditional classroom instruction. Mediatinginstruction via telecommunications technology toovercome physical distance alters both theinterpersonal and instructional communicationsprocesses. Consequently, the "joint activities ofteaching and learning at a distance raise a completelynew set of problems" (Sparkes, 1983, p. 183). One such"problem" ofteh confronting distance teachers is thatof designing instruction for adult learners.

Faced with new delivery technologies, alteredteaching environments, and changing studentdemographics, distance teachers must "accomodate [sic]

a number of variables which are not normallyencountered" (Carter, 1982, p. 6) in designinginstruction for more conventional settings. Planninginstruction for a distance context becomes problematic.Those who design and present instruction fortelecommunicated distance delivery to adults face new

1

3ar;i1

Teachers' Planning 2

challenges in designing instruction to assure thatdesired outcomes are achieved.

This study addressed the lack of an understandingdrawn from practice of how teachers of college andadult students design instruction for live,telecommunicated delivery. Given that teachers do notapply prescriptive planning models (Morine-Dershimer &Valiance, 1976; Neale, Pace & Case, 1983; Peterson,Marx & Clark, 1978; Sardo, 1982; Taylor, 1970; Yinger,1977; Zahorik, 1975), what constitutes planning fordistance instruction for adult learners? Whatconstructs and rules guide distance teachers indesigning instruction in a complex and uncertainpractice setting?

The purpose of this study was to describe thepreactive instructional planning of university facultyteaching adult learners'at a distance. Four questionsshaped the course of the study:

1. What is the nature of teachers' planning?2. What instructional considerations most concern

distance teachers as they plan?3. Wnat are the major factors that influence

teachers in planning distance instruction in theirparticular setting?

4. What rules of action governing planning can beinferred from teachers' self-reports of planning andfrom observations of their implemented plans?

Theoretical Foundation

Jackson (1968) distinguished two components ofteaching: interactive and preactive teaching.Interactive teaching refers to those phases when theteacher is working directly with the students.Preactive teaching occurs prior to and afterinteractive teaching when teachers are engaged inactivities such as preparing lessons, selecting .

instructi nal materials, or evaluating students'performance. During both of these component phases,teachers plan. Instructional planning is an importantaspect of the practice of teaching (Romberg, 1980). In

planning at the preactive level teachers set theirdirection, their course of action. Teachers makedecisions about what to teach and how to teach it.

Research in the relatively new area of teacherplanning (see Clark & Peterson, 1986; and Shavelson &Stern, 1981) provides insights into how teachers inelementary schools plan. However, the literature tellsus little about how teachers of college and adultstudents plan. Studies are only beginning to examinethe instructional planning process in which teachers of


college students engage (Andresen et al., 1985; Dinham,1989; Powell & Shanker, 1982; Stark et al., 1988).Planning for non-traditional learners and environmentsis unchartered territory.

Unfortunately, the technical/professionalknowledge of practice may not provide sufficientguidance for those designing distance instruction(Sparkes, 1983). Further, the literature that pertainsto designing instruction to be delivered live at adistance is deficient. While offering practicalsuggestions and recommendations, the literature failsto provide data-based and conceptually-linked designprescriptions to inform practice. Given theseinadequacies, practitioners must look to their ownreflective practice.

Professionals, in general, hold implicit theoriesof practice through whiCh they make sense of complex,divergent situations (Argyris & Schön, 1974). Researchin the emerging area of teachers' thinking (see Clark &Peterson, 1986) documents that teachers, asprofessionals, possess tacit understandings of theirroles, their students, and the processes of instructionthat guide their practice (Conners, 1978; Elbaz, 1981;Fox, 1983; Marland, 1977; Munby, 1983). However,researchers have not as yet identified rules of actionthat derive from examining the practice of instructionas it is planned and delivered by telecommunications ina distance context. It remains unknown how faculty,when faced with the uncertain and divergent situationof distance teaching, construct their planning/designpractice as a problem that they can solve.

Methods

This study was framed as a qualitative study thatdescribed how distance teachers planned instruction foradult learners in a telecommunications-based distanceeducation setting. Planning was examined within thecontext of instruction that takes place live, is

mediated by telecommunications technology, and servesan adult audience.Participants

Eleven full-time university faculty members whowere teaching credit courses at a distance participatedin the study. All participants had prior experience inor preparation for teaching at a distance, and hadreputations as good teachers. The faculty wereteaching courses that were part of the standardcurriculum and that they had taught previeusly in aface-to-face setting. The majority of the students

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enrolled in the course were adult learners. A profileof participating faculty is presented in Table 1.Setting

The distance education program linked students atsites located in the states of Utah and Colorado withlive instruction originating from a classroom at astate university in Utah. From eight to eleven remotereceive sites were connected by telecommunicationstechnology to one of two distance classrooms at theorigination site.

Instruction was delivered by audio-graphic mediathat involved the transmission of two-way audio andone-way still image video signals via telephone lines.Audio communication was facilitated by the use of push-to-talk microphones. Communication of visual imageswas accomplished in several ways. Both originatingclassrooms had the capacity to transmit still video(slow-scan/freeze-frame) images of the instructor, ofwriting on the board, or of a prepared visual such asan overhead transparency. Classroom A used anelectronic blackboard to transmit real-time writing;Classroom B was equipped with an Optel writing tabletthat also enabled the transmission and annotation ofpreviously stored graphics. As many as eleven siteswidely disperset4 over the two states depended on dailyUPS deliveries for the submission and return ofassignments and tests.Data Collection

Data were collected over the (murse of the winterand spring quarters of 1990. Three data collectionmethods were applied: interview, observation, anddocument analysis. The primary method of datacollection was semi-structured interviewing. Each ofthe faculty members was interviewed twice during thequarter in which s/he was teaching. The interviewsemphasized the process of planning instruction.Questions were structured around three general the:hes:the activities of planning; instructional concernsconsidered during planning; and influences thataffected planning. Each interview was audio-taped andsubsequently transcribed into an interview log foranalysis.

Second, the researcher directly observed at leasttwo class sessions conducted at a distance by each ofthe faculty interviewed. Since the phenomenon ofplanning could not be observed directly, observationsought to derive a sense of context for whichinstruction was planned. All observations wereconducted in the originating classroom. The researchermade detailed field notes, focusing on bothinstructional presentation and dynamics.

6

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Table 1Research ParlicipanM

Participant Department RankDistance

Teaching. Exp.Type ofCourse

Class-room

Numberof Sites

Numberof Students

Psychology Assoc. Prof. Veteran ' ,ower Div. A 11 50

2 Anthropology Professor Veteran Upper Div. 7 18

3 History Professor Veteran Upper Div. 13 1 0 37

4 Business Professor Veteran Upper Div. A 10 66

5 English Professor New Upper Div. 13 8 46

6 Education Asst. Prof. Veteran Graduate 9 45

7 English Asst. Prof. New Upper Div. 7 18

8 Economics Assoc. Prof. Veteran Graduate 7 18

9 English Assoc. Prof. Veteran Upper Div. 13 9 39

10 Philosophy Assoc. Prof. Veteran Upper Div. 5 35

11 Business Professor Veteran Lower Div. A 9 34

Average 8 37

87


The third means gf data collection was theanalysis of documents pertaining to instruction asplanned by the participating teachers. The researchercollected two types of documents from the participants:(1) pre-existing planning documents such as lessonplans, presentation outlines, of course syllabi, and(2) a journal generated specifically for the study.Data Analysis

In analyzing the data, the researcher applied theconstant comparative method of data analysis. Constantcomparison involved coding, categorizing, andtheorizing about the data. Data from each interview,observation and document were coded to yielddescriptive and interpretive categories that werecompared with data collected subsequently. As datawere compared, categories were merged or revised, andproperties of those categories were developed. Thefinal phase in the constant comparative method involvedtheorizing, that is, finding relationships among thecategories.

To facilitate the handling of large amounts oftext data, QUALPRO, software designed expressly for themanagement of qualitative data, was used. The programworked in conjunction with word processing software,(in this case WordPerfect 5.0), to store, code,organize and manipulate text files.

Findings

The results of data analysis describe the processin which faculty engaged when planning, the majorfactors that influenced planning, and the teacher-heldprinciples--implicit rules of action--that facultyapplied in planning. Table 2 summarizes the categoriesof data analysis and their respective properties asdescribed below.The Nature of Planning

Three features characterized the preactiveplanning process: (1) faculty engaged course or termplanning, (2) planning was driven by content, and (3)distance planning focused on the development of anextended syllabus.

Tem_plalniag. When designing distanceinstruction, the participants approached the task byplanning at the course or term level. Planning tookthe form of a time-consuming, front-end activity ratherthan an ongoing one. Looking at the big picture, thefaculty saw their course of action laid out over theduration of the quarter. They concentrated theirplanning efforts on making the majority of their

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Table 2

Summary of Findings

The Nature of the Planning ProcessTerm planningDriven by contentFocused on syllabus development

Factors that Influence Planning. Constrained by time. Restricted by the medium

Lack of visual communicationPhysical separationTechnical obstaclesOn-site studentsLag time

Implicit Rules of ActionCover the materialMaintain controlGo with the flowProvide an equL-able learning

experience


instructional decisions up front where the course wabessentially packaged in an extensive syllabus prior tothe beginning of the term. There was little day-to-daylesson planning.

In planning the course, the participants wereconcerned, first, with defining_the content and,second, with matching the content with the timeavailable in which to teach it. These two tasks wereembedded in the larger, central planning activity, thedevelopment of the course syllabus.

How to present content went largely unplanned. Bytheir own admission, faculty were secondarily concernedwith methodology, as evidenced by the lack of written .

planning documents other than the syllabus and by theabsence of procedural plans within the syllabithemselves.

Driven by content.. To these distance teachersplanning instruction meant planning content.Participants centered on the selection and sequencingof the subject matter. In both the decisions they madeand in the planning documents they produced, thefaculty focused on content--that "set of information"that one selected "to cover". While a few participantsmentioned considering factors such as thecharacteristics of their "audience", or the influenceof logistical and technical constraints on instruction,it was a preoccupation with what to teach that drovethe instructional design of the course.

In planning the course, two dependent tasksdominated: determining "what to cover", and matchingcontent with the time available in which to cover it.

Detcrmining what to cover consisted of identifying theconcepts and setting goals and/or objectives. Definingcontent was a process of giving shape to an amorphousbody of knowledge.

Faculty asked themselves the "what" questions thatgave shape to the content: "What's the course forr;"What do I really want students to accomplish at theend of this class?"; "What are the abstractions thatthey have to understand?"; "What's important and what'skind of frosting on tne cake?"

The second planning task, matching content,involved establishing the order of coverage and fittingcontent to the given time frame. Matching time andcontent meant "equat[ing] the time you have availableto the material you want to cover." Once they definedthe relevant content, typically in a topic outline orlecture notes, the faculty fit or matched it to theblocks of time available.

Focused on syllabus development. Decisions aboutcontent were packaged in an extensive syllabus prior to

ii 965


the first meeting of the term. The syllabus embodiedthe planning decisions. and captured them in a tangibleform. As one participant described it, "developing thesyllabus is where it's at. . . Any course you've taughtfor a while has its shape in your head, and thesyllabus is nothing more than giving it form, aconcrete form." Developing a syllabus was the focalpoint of distance planning.

To call this central planning document a syllabusis misleading; for in most cases, the syllabus was farmore extensive than the traditional one- or two-pagehandout. It was commonly referred to as the"expanded", "enhanced", or "extended" syllabus, and inits extension, the syllabus was unique.

The extended syllabus had as its base thetraditional class syllabus which typically containeditems such as a course description; listings c).! goals,readings and assignments; a topic outline; and gradingpolicies. In addition to these standard items, thesyllabi also contained handouts or hard copies ofvisual materials, study questions, reprinted articles,or extensive essays. Syllabi varied widely in length,contents and format. A summary of syllabus contents ispresented in Table 3. It was the marriage of thestandard document with expanded lecture notes andsupplemental materials that gave birth to the newexpanded form that was predominantly a contentdocument.

The syllabus served several purposes. First, itwas designed to support the semi-independent learningof the students. Since most distance classes met lessfrequently, and some for shorter periods of time thanthose which met on campus face-to-f,ce, an enhancedsyllabus compensated for the loss of contact hours.Particularly for those distance students who did nothave ready access to the instructor or to a peerlearning group, the syllabus was a valuable aid thatdirected their thinking and learning.

Providing an enhanced syllabus also economizedinstructional time: "Because the syllabus is so muchbeefier in terms of reading material and exercises thatI normally expect in an on-campus course, than I canactually reduce the amount of lecture time." Thesyllabus was, at the same time, as much a study guidefor students as it was a master plan for the

ilstructor. A number of faculty used the syllabus as apresentation outline relying on its organizationalstructure to guide their lectures. In class, thesyllabus served as "a point of departure fordiscussion" from which the teacher and the studentscould "flesh out the details by talking together.

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Producing the syllabus also representedprofessional development. Syllabus development wastime-consuming and called for reflecting on customaryapproaches to teaching, as a veteran distance teacherobserved: "I don't know of anybody who sits down andthinks through a class the way this system makes youthink through it to crank out a sixty or seventy pagesyllabus."

Developing the syllabus had a reciprocal effect oninstruction. An interesting spin-off of this centralplanning activity was that a number of faculty used theextended syllabus with subsequent sections of the samecourse taught entirely in a face-to-face setting.Additionally, faculty reported that the extra planningefforts of producing the syllabus paid off in improvedteaching.

But developing and working from an extendedsyllabus had an important drawback. Faculty reportedfeeling "tied to the syllabus". On the one hand, anextended syllabus gave the course its structure andlaid out its direction. Yet once written, the syllabusbecame, in effect, a contract leaving little room forspontaneous deviation. Faculty felt locked in tofollowing the syllabus, and consequently, less free tobe flexible or spontaneous.Factors That Influenced Plannina

Designing distance instruction was subject to theinfluence of factors in the teaching and learningenvironment. Two attributes of the distance setting,time and the medium of delivery, defined the context in

which the instruction would take place. These twocontextual fac4;ors influenced teachers in planningtheir instructional course of action, and affected theoutcome of planning.

Constrained by time. Time was a significantfactor in designing distance instruction. Typically,there were fewer contact hours for the distance taughtcourses than for the same course offered on campus.The humanities courses, for example, met once a weekfor two hours when the comparable on-campus course metfor one hour four times a week. Teaching in thisdistance program meant working within a compacted orcondensed time frame in which facuh,f expected to coverthe same material but in less time.

Accommodating a foreshortened time frame involvedboth compromise and dilemma. Time constraints had theeffect of diminishing spontaneity. Given the fewercontact hours coupled with the brevity of the quartersystem, most faculty expressed a sense of urgency in

accomplishing their goals. In classrooms, theatmosphere was often tense as participants felt "up

1 5Ci 8


against the clock", particularly when technical orlogistical difficulties further robbed them ofinstructional time.

Participants often spoke of time as a luxury.Contrasting distance teaching to face-to-face teaching,participants noted that in the distance context, timewas a precious commodity to be judiciously consumed.Deviating from planned content or permitting theinstructional exchange to develop unencumberedconstituted a luxury they could not afford.

Restricted by the medium of deliver . In theirplanning, the participants were also influenced by themedium of delivery. The medium had the effect ofrestricting what the teacher could plan to do, bothbecause of how the system was configured, and becauseof the logistical challenges such a configurationposed. It was common in journal entries for thewriters to vent their irritation with logistical andtechnical obstacles and interruptions that frustratedtheir plans. Likewise, conversations with participantsinvariably touched upon problems and annoyancesassociated with the mechanics of the program thatimpinged upon what an instructor planned or would haveplanned to do.

Five dimensions of the medium and its deliveryemerged as challenges to designing distanceinstruction.

(1) the lack of visual communication - Theinability to see the students during instruction wasperceived as a major "electronic barrier" toinstructional communication that impeded feadback,rapport, and interaction. Without the return video,the participants felt that the amount of feedback theywere able to provide and, more important, receive fromstudents decreased significantly. Trying to teachwithout seeing students was tantamount to "teaching in

a vacuum", a prospect that caused anxiety in mostfaculty who had come to depend on feedback to directthe flow of instruction.

Coincidentally, without the opportunity to makeeye contact and to gather feedback, teachers had thetendency to refer to students as "faceless people"."invisible faces", or collectively and impersonally as"out there." They found it difficult "to build arapport with the class if you can't reach out and touchthem" or "to demons:rate personal interest in them whenthey're a voice out of a black box." The faculty alsofelt that lacking visual communication, students wereless likely to engage in instructional dialogue withthem and other students they could not see. And,

16 969


indeed, only rarely was student-to-student interactionobserved.

(2) physical separation - Much the same was saidwith regard to the second challenge, the physicalseparation of learners. The amount of interactionamong students and between the students and the teacherwas reduced along with the spontaneity of suchdialogue. Participants compared the dynamics betweenconventional and distance settings: "When you have anon-campus group, they work off of each other. . . The[distance] students (are) without that kind ofinteraction in the class."

Again, rapport was hindered as teachers found it

difficult to get to know the students, and for thestudents to get to know students other than those withwhom they shared a site. Teaching and learning at adistance represented not only physical distance amongthose involved, but also "psychic distance".

(3) technical obstacles - The configuration of thesystem and technical difficulties often associated withits implementation affected the dynamics ofinstruction, and the use of instructional ma"erials.Problems with equipment or transmission could lessenthe teaching value of the instructional material, or atworst, render a particular instructional materialuseless. Technical failures were particularlytroublesome, for they broke the "flow" or naturaldevelopment of planned instruction and spontaneousdiscussion. Interruptions represented "a pause in thediscussion. . . a mental pause for me".

Frustrations with the implementation ofinstructional materials discouraged their use. Whileteaching at a distance begged instructors to "think

visually", the realities prompted faculty to askwhether investing time and energy in planning for the

use of visuals was worth the effort.(4) on-site students - The presence (or absence)

of students at the origination site posed a fourthchallenge to design. The majority of participantspreferred to have students in the originatingclassroom. In addition to providing a personaldimension that many found essential to their teachingstyle, "real people to whom I could relate" contributeda critical element to the dynamics of instruction.Teachers relied on the face-to-face students to provide

them with feedback about their teaching performance andto "gauge" the students' comprehension. Without thefeedback provided by "the presence of warm bodies in

front of you. . ." , "it becomes really, really easyjust to lecture". Though they preferred to have somestudents present, the participants acknowledged an

970 17


inherent risk: the teffdency to teach to the studentsthey could see and with whom they could directlyinteract.

(5) lag time - A fifth influence on design waslogistical, and partly bureaucratic. A major challengeexisted in overcoming "lag time" between the receiptand redistribution of assignments and tests.Configured to accommodate one-way video and two-wayaudio, alternative means were required for the exchangeof printed materials. Options such as facsimile werecostly and its frequent use discouraged. The mail,while more economical, took more time and was subjectto the vagaries of distribution on campus and at thesites. The logistics of this system posed a bottleneckthat reduced timely feedback to many students.

The factors of time and the medium of delivery--sometimes alone, often in combination, exerted theirinfluence on the design of distance instruction. Eachset limits that challenged teachers' planning.Rules of Action: Implicit Guides to Planning

The concern for content and the factors of timeand the medium, were not the sole determinants ofinstruction. Faculty also brought to planning theirbeliefs, attitudes, and concerns about the nature andconduct of instruction. The participants developed aset of guiding principles or implicit rules of actionthat blended important elements from their own teachingphilosophies, styles and experiences with the factorsat work in distance planning. The following tacitrules underlaid teachers' planning.

Cover the material. Once unburdened of what tocover, faculty were guided by the directive to "coverthe material". The defined content became theinstructor's "agenda". Because of "time pressures",adhering to that agenda drove the implementation ofinstruction.

Following the precept to cover material, thefaculty designed instruction that was tightlystructured and.predominantly lecture. Being structuredmeant having a clear sense of what the objectives wereand where those objectives should lead. Writing anextended syllabus gave the course its structure andprovided both faculty, and students with the course andsession agendas. Preoccupation with covering contentlead participants to utilize an expository mode of

presentation. "Lecture with some discussion" was theprimary instructional method.

The choice to cover the material involved trade-offs. Most faculty members reported that "engaging"students was important to their (-eaching style, but in

reality interaction took a back seat to content as the


participants frequently sacrificed discussion anddialogue to covering the material. But as an Englishprofessor told his class that's "the price you pay fordistance learning".

Maintain control. Facing barriers tocommunication and intrusions on_their classroomautonomy, faculty were motivated by the need to be incontrol of the instruction. In planning, one way tomaximize one's control was through structure. Theteacher determined and controlled the agenda that wastightly centered around content and written in adetailed syllabus. Strategies employed to maintaincontrol resulted in instruction that was teacher-centered and predominantly verbal.

While content was under the faculty's control, thedelivery and the physical environment were not. Togive themselves more of-a sense of control, theparticipants played it safe and minimized theirdependence on the system. They used familiarinstructional techniques which, for most, were acombination of lecture and questioning, and they stayedclose to the agenda. Playing it safe also meant usingfamiliar instructional media such as the chalkboard,overhead transparencies or an occasional video tape.The visual capabilities of the medium were under-utilized; prepared graphics such as slides and computergenerated graphics were rarely used. To explore thecapabilities of the new medium of delivery was to riskthe lose of control to technical difficulties orlogistical delays. By minimizing one's dependence onthe system, a teacher could exercise some controlwithin a precarious medium of delivery.

Go with the flow. Participants were alsoinfluenced in designing instruction by the concept of"the flow of ingtruction". Flow referred to thenatural or "organic" development of instruction thatbrought together planned activities and spontaneousdiscussion. Achieving flow depended on the instructorbeing flexible enough to allow spontaneous deviationfrom plans, structured enough to know where theinstruction should lead, and in control enough to beable to bring digressions back on course. Oneparticipant defined it as "a balance that is difficultto keep between allowing students to ask a lot ofquestions, to engage in a lot of interaction, and,quote 'covering the material'". In going with theflow, the faculty applied flexibility within structure.Having content structured afforded them the opportunityto be responsive and flow with the instruction, butalso to bring the direction of instruction back totheir set agenda.


Premised on the assumption that .nstructionalinteraction flowed naturally, generated by "the qualityand interest of the material" and "provocativequestions", faculty modeled their plan on that of on-campus instruction where students more readily took aparticipatory role and dialogue was more spontaneous.In a traditional campus environthent, interactiondeveloped rather "organically" because it was notimperative to build in opportunities for interactionand feedback. At a distance, however, and withobstacles to free-wheeling communication, the distancestudents were frequently less active contributors to orinitiators of discussion. Though the faculty desiredand encouraged student participation, they did notdeliberately plan for interaction. Unplanned,interaction was dependent on skillful on-linequestioning and the capricious nature of studentparticipation. As a result, the teacher shouldered theresponsibility for nurturing flow.

Assuming that flow would develop naturally oftenproved counterproductive. Without sufficientinteraction and feedback, and in the absence of plannedcontingencies to stimulate flow, the faculty foundthemselves less able to "orchestrate the flow ofinstruction" and more inclined to lecture.

Provide an equitable learning experience.Participants were also guided by the concern to providedistance students with, as much as possible, the samelearning experience as the on-campus students wereafforded. Sensitive to impressions among some of theircolleagues that distance learning was a "second bestsystem" of instruction, faculty expressed the need toprovide for an equal experience. The principle ofproviding an equitable learning experience translatedinto doing things the same way.

Concerns for equity reinforced the use of familiarmethods and media, and discouraged thinking about .

distance teaching on its own terms. It was common incomparing contexts for participants to conceptualizedistance teaching as an anomaly, referring to classestaught at a distance and their "normal" or "regular"class. The challenge of planning distance instructionwas to find ways to pursue the same ends by the samemeans.

Discussion

Although teaching at a distance prompted subtledifferences in style, participants concluded that theirapproach to instruction remained essentially the samein a distance setting as it was in a more conventionalenvironment. But in process, however, it was the

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creation of a unique planning document thatdistinguished planning. for distance instruction fromdesigning its on-campus counterpart.

Developing the extended syllabus was synonymouswith planning the distance course, for in its.development, the syllabus embodied the decisionsfaculty made about the shape of instruction. Theextended syllabus was, at once, the focal point andmanifestation of distance planning. The creation of adetailed syllabus supports Stark's et al. (1988)speculation that syllabus development, in general, "mayrepresent the process of course development in whichthe teacher has engaged" (p. 17).

The emphasis accorded the development of adetailed syllabus in the present context, stronglysuggests its continued evolution and applicability toother settings. While the syllabus took on addedsignificance for these teachers because of a compressedinstructional time frame, the development of some typeof teaching/learning document is likely to be a majorpreoccupation of most distance teachers' planning.

While faculty were preoccupied with determiningthe content to be covered, and matching that content tothe time available, their approach to the design ofinstruction glossed over a number of general designconsiderations. Factors such as the circumstancesunder which the instruction would take place, howinstruction would be delivered, and the intendedlearning outcomes received little attention in thefaculty's construction of their course of action.

Especially absent from their expressed planningconcerns were considerations of the students. That isnot to say that faculty failed to take students intoaccount when planning, but the minimal amount of talkabout students' needs, interests, and learningattributes suggested that students were a much lowerpriority in a planning scheme that focused on content.Even more noticeably, the faculty did not talk aboutadult student3, who constituted the greater part of the

learner population. The majority of faculty did notacknowledge eldults as learners distinct from the moretraditional university student. The slighting of adultstudents resulted not from a conscious, deliberatechoice to ignore them, but rather from a lack ofawareness of the characteristics and needs of thispopulation, and of the implications for teaching andlearning.

Separated by distance and relying principally onaudio communication, teachers were challenged to thinkvisually and to maximize interactivity. However, theinstruction, as designed by the participants, was not

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characterized by either of these attributes. Rather,distance instruction Looked much like traditional face-to-face college instruction: it was teacher-centeredlecture and assumed a natural emergence of studentparticipation and involvement. Little, if any, contentwas carried or supplemented graphically; interactiveteaching and learning technique6 were not the norm.The faculty missed an opportunity to optimallyintegrate the capabilities of the delivery medium intothe instrurtional design.

When considering the instructional concerns andinfluences that are represented in the teachers'implicit guides to planning distance instruction, oneconclusion stands out above the others. In planningdistance instruction, faculty retrofitted rather thanredesigned their instruction. That is, theparticipants did not so'much design or plan instructionin consideration of the content, the studentcharacteristics, and the context of instruction as theydid adapt or transform instruction that had previouslybeen planned. Redesigning would have called foraccommodating the contextual factors and thecharacteristics of learners by building aninstructional plan from the ground up with respect tocontent and method.

In retrofitting, by contrast, participants madeadjustments in style or adaptations in strategies tofit a previously existing course and its methods to anew context. The planning problem became one of makingthe minimal changes required to fit customaryinstruction to a different environment.

Retrofitting had the effect of mirroring face-to-face instruction. The faculty began with existingcontent and an existing course design. They concededto.the constraints of time and the restrictions imposedby the medium and, adjusted instruction as designed forface-to-face presentation to fit the distance context.Changes came about in response to restrictions oncustomary procedures, rather than in consideration of achanged environment. The strategy of retrofittingamounted to transferring instruction from a face-to-face setting to a distance medium rather thantransforming its design.

Of the courses taught at a distance during thepresent study, all were pre-existing courses, that is,the faculty member had taught the course previously ina traditional campus setting. None were both new tothe instructor and new to the distance mode ofdelivery. Given the time pressures and faced with thenovelty of distance teaching, faculty found it bothsafe and expedient not to change. But what if the

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Teachers Planning 19

courses had been planned from scratch, specifically tobe taught at a distance? Would faculty have designedthem differently? The question remains open tospeculation.

This discussion does not mean to imply thatretrofitting or teachers' customary practices werewrong, and that designing from scratch would be theonly way to approach distance instruction. Nor is itto say that instruction was not effective as designedand implemented. The final outcome of instruction maywell have been the same. It is, however, theconviction of this researcher that designing distanceinstruction requires giving full consideration to theelements that have the potential to ;hape the design.Retrofitting as a design approach can be detrimental.A mind-set for adapting face-to-face instructionhinders faculty in closely reflecting on the coursedesign that best reconciles the content with thestudents' characteristics and with the as,3ets andliabilities of the medium of delivery. As Knapper(1988) contends, designing distance instruction interms of its on-campus counterpart is a disservice.

Conclusion

This study looked at the preactive planning of asmall group of faculty in one particular distanceteaching and learning context. Features of theinstructional environment such as the reduced contacthours, the amount of training and instructional supportprovided to faculty, and the audio-graphic deliverysystem, restrict the transfer of findings to otherdistance contexts. However, the findings expand theliterature on teachers' thinking by providingadditional insight into the little explored area of howcollege/university faculty plan. But more than that,this description of planning in higher educationventures into two areas not touched upon by previousresearch. The present study inaugurates research onplanning in non-traditional settings with non-traditional learners.

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