I met Michelle Read through the Texas State University’s Advance Instructional Design Course, which aids instructors in developing fully on-line courses. I had the good fortune to be able to take this course twice (for two different courses) and Michelle was my mentor on my second time through. To be honest, the first time I had an instructor whose approach was very hands off and not too much feedback. Michelle was the polar-opposite; she clearly explained why I had to do the (sometimes tedious) lesson planning before I actually committed to lesson building. This made the process clear and reasonable, even if it did take more time. In the end, I saw that I was able to critique my work as I was building; whereas, the first time around I had to critique my work not only after I built the course, but sometimes as the course was running. She also helped me to identify my strengths and weaknesses in course planning so that I can continue to build courses that I know will meet the university’s best practices expectations. Since my learning experience with Michelle, I have gone on to build three other on-line courses. I found that putting work into designing how one will proceed in instruction has improved my face-to-face classes as well. Thank you Michelle for making me aware of the need to plan and design before I step into the classroom be it in a building or on the web.