The study described in this report examined the ways in which teachers prepare to teach using microcomputers. The participants in the study were four teachers who used computers in instruction, and who had been identified as outstanding by an educational foundation. They represented elementary special education, high school gifted education, junior high technology education, and high school English. These teachers were observed in their classrooms and interviewed, and their planning books, notes, and handouts were reviewed, in order to analyze the processes they engaged in when designing instruction for class lessons, units, and courses. The results of the analysis revealed that these processes, whether or not they involved computers and computer-assisted instruction, were previously established, highly individualized, largely unspoken, and, for the most part, shared among all teachers. It is concluded that: (1) the teachers' innovative use of computers in instruction resulted from the previously established processes and not from any value or worth intrinsic to the computer; and (2) future inservice teacher education should help teachers develop their own teaching methods and processes of design and allow them to incorporate the use of technology in the realization of their educational goals. (35 references) (DB)