In this exploratory inquiry into the nature of the relationship between systematic instructional design models and teachers' planning practices and needs, the researchers conducted open-­ended interviews with six teachers of science and math in order to discover how they conceptualized and practiced instructional design. The most important finding to emerge from this research was that, from the teachers' perspective, caring must be a central component of any instructional design activity. Regardless of gender and grades taught, the teachers indicated that they need to be able to make instructional decisions based upon their caring relationships with individual learners.