Technology as a tool used to enhance instruction must be viewed in its proper perspective. Instruction via distance learning is an excellent example. Instruction must be appropriate for the intended audience, and must be observed and evaluated within the expectations of criteria used for evaluating effective teaching. Traditional criteria may be appropriate for evaluating regular classroom instruction, but not appropriate for distance learning instruction. Criteria such as “wait time and questioning techniques,” are well documented, but were derived through tedious observation and recordings of repetitive behaviors within a regular classroom. As an administrator or evaluator observes in a classroom where instruction is being delivered via television, consideration must be given for adaptations that must be made for observing the distance learning classroom. Observation training in the distance learning classroom will be tedious, but new examples and innovative ways of documenting teaching behaviors are needed. The authors present a case for the development of new criteria for evaluating distance learning instruction
