Abstract
In the spring of the 2023 academic school year, I analyzed data from 6 sessions of a fully online English 5 course that were taught by Teaching Associates during the 2021 academic year. This course was designed as a response to the closure of campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was built using best pedagogical practices for online instruction while also incorporating different elements of metacognition to improve student course outcomes. Using a grounded theory approach and Dynamic Criteria Mapping (DCM), I reviewed the responses and assignments from the 33 student participants seeking any explicit references that allude to the student’s thoughts about writing, either about the process of developing that skill or specific challenges that they faced in the class. The initial line of inquiry focused on discovering any key connections from the online instruction pedagogy and the end-user experience for the students who took these courses utilizing a metacognitive lens. Evidence of metacognition was found in the week 15 mind maps, and theory of writing essays. Students reflected on how their own awareness of their writing had changed to the point in which the concerns that they had shared in the first week were often replaced completely by newer more critical concerns. These shifts in student concerns are clear indications of where metacognition helped students understand writing on a deeper and more critical level, and reflective assignments should be considered to foster students’ metacognition. For future research, this analysis could be enhanced by collecting survey or interview data from participants to ascertain the specific impact of the metacognitive and online course design had on their learning outcomes or be expanded to consider other online writing classes, such as upper division or writing intensive courses, to determine the applicability of these practices in those contexts.