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During the recent debates around rewriting federal rules on higher education innovation, officials from the U.S. Department of Education raised the possibility of revising the definition of an instructor to include “instructional teams.” While some experts involved in the discussions endorsed the proposal, others fretted that it could allow nefarious institutions to receive federal aid while hiring groups of unqualified people to lead courses.
The resulting proposal softened the department’s original intention, allowing that distance education courses eligible for federal aid can be taught by “an instructor or instructors” who are "responsible for delivering course content." Under the proposed new rules, institutional accreditors will have the authority to define more specifically an instructor’s qualifications. Advocates of new forms of teaching and learning largely welcomed these changes, which protect institutions experimenting with new classifications of faculty roles.
