









































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

131 
 

Original Paper 

Case Study Research, Critical Hermeneutics, and Metacognition: 

Create Active Blended Learning to Enhance Maximum 

Retention through Original Videos 
Dr. Maryann Pasda DiEdwardo1* 

1 University of Maryland Global Campus, (UMGC), Largo, Maryland, U.S.A.; Lehigh University, 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. 
* Dr. Maryann Pasda DiEdwardo, University of Maryland Global Campus, (UMGC), Largo, Maryland, 

U.S.A.; Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. 

 

Received: November 6, 2020   Accepted: November 14, 2020   Online Published: November 22, 2020 

doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p131                     URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p131 

 

Abstract 

During Fall Semester 2020, I perform case study research on a single subject (myself) to prove the 

hypothesis that I create a model which helps me to present metacognitive training to maximize 

retention for students who participate in the class weekly, who post discussions, and who are writing 

papers. Do video lectures enhance learning and maximize retention in online classes? What are the 

effects on my teaching and my performance as a Professor when I create a model? How do video 

lectures help me to present metacognitive training to maximize retention? During the during Fall 

Semester 2020, I perform case study research on a single subject to prove the hypothesis that I create a 

model which helps me to present metacognitive training to maximize retention for all the students who 

participate in the class weekly, who post discussions, and who are writing papers. I participate seven 

days during every study week of the eight-week online class. I showed enthusiasm for teaching, since I 

extended the weekly content by using my own videos based on my own writing to frame a story line that 

offered planning and outline, writing developmental paragraphs, writing a literary critique, and 

comparing two short stories. 

Keywords 

retention, metacognitive, hermeneutics, pedagogy, analysis, critique, literary 

 

 

 



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1. Introduction 

I initiated the case study research process in the fall of 2020 to study my pedagogy for English 102 

Literature and Composition, an online course delivered in an asynchronous platform. Students write 

two papers. create an outline, four drafts and a reflection on the writing processes. At the University of 

Maryland Global Campus, I teach eight week sessions with weekly activities that are discussion posts. I 

also asses these each week. Plus, I post the weekly writing assignment in Announcement in the virtual 

classroom. I decided to include video lectures in announcements as an addition to my audio feedback in 

discussions to add more pedagogical strategies based on metacognition. During the case study, I created 

nine videos to extend specific topics and correlated the videos with the weekly objectives to maximize 

retention and reinforce learning. Additionally, video recordings are asynchronous tools that provide an 

overview and explanation. 

Investigating the useful social functionality of literature as well as the theoretical processes of the 

literary scholar regards the power of writing for cultural change. Consider participants’ views and 

knowledge. We discuss civic values through the hermeneutic arc and prepare to study through 

metacognitive activities. The most important outcome of hermeneutics and metacognition in writing is 

cultural poetics which seeks to identify literary works as social discourses. 

In 2017, Journal of Modern Education Review published my article titled “Implementing Learning 

Strategies Based on Metacognition”. To write, engage memories of readings, life experiences, and 

imagination. Accordingly, these three patterns compose voice. Based on my previous researches, I 

initiated a panel for the Northeast Modern Language Association Convention in 2018. Upon acceptance 

to present the papers in 2019 in Washington, D.C., I contracted with Vernon Press to craft a book about 

the panel titled “Critical Hermeneutics Metacognition, and Writing”. Metacognitive activities as those 

that help students plan for tasks by thinking about preparatory skills that the students may have before 

class, such as social networking. Metacognitive skills also encourage students reflection on their ability 

to perform tasks. Writing Process with reflective journaling, peer discussions and peer assessments, 

self-monitoring and student self-assessments offer insight into their own writing process and interaction 

with a group. Student-directed pedagogical models and 21st century pop culture themes fuse to ignite a 

learning community for reflection, discovery, and social networking to motivate the 21st century 

student. ç focus on Multiple Intelligence Theory, Life Story Writing, Studying Oral Histories, Writing 

Process Theory, Learning Paradigm and Learning Communities. Globalization of the literary canon 

requires applications of the aspects of oral history traditions. My class is organized to become a 

learning community with a focus writing short stories as authentic assessments to develop student 

voices. 

As cultures converge in global 21st century classroom, students of multiethnic backgrounds require 

varied models to succeed. Reading, writing, and arithmetic which served our industrial society may be 



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enhanced by a new fourth “R” or remembrance as educational focus for the age of technology and 

multiculturalism. Language is the basis of classrooms whether traditional, enhanced or distance. 

Language based upon oral history can connect cultures in classrooms. Students read the works of 

multicultural authors and create audio presentations in youtube. Music, photography, art, , twitter and 

Facebook become the new literature. Stories that students create in the new literature of the social 

network become the new voices for a global cultural literature revolution. Authentic Assessment 

engages student writers by breaking down interior interpersonal borders. As a framework for teaching 

composition or introductory literature classes, the short story concentrates on the understanding of the 

themes of literary consciousness. 

A creative approach to teaching blends metacognition and hermeneutics with a concentration on social 

justice as a paradigm for the English classroom which resounds with tension and resolution dependent 

upon the silent resilience of the individual. Through student-directed pedagogical model, writing class 

fuses into a learning community for reflection, discovery, and peer editing for student motivation and 

success. We actively engage students to explore archetypical universes created by current imaginative 

writers. Mythological Literary Criticism and Film Theory as a lens into archetypes. We also engage in 

analysis of personal essays on identity. Metacognition and a student-directed pedagogical model. 

Through the paradigm of active learning, we engage in reading key articles by scholars in the field in 

blogs, wikis, web sites, books, pamphlets, newsletters, or journals or other material demonstrating 

techniques of close reading in order to explicate a text with terms of the literary scholar that apply to 

writing across the curriculum and differentiating among major literary genres to converse, to analyze, 

and to use cultural heritage. Students possess qualities of memory based upon human everyday 

experiences similar to those experiences within literary works they read. I play pod casts of sample 

student essays that show how students recall events or conditions based upon the relationship of 

reading to memory. One of my students recalls her own beliefs in mercy killing and relates her heritage 

based upon family and cultural beliefs in the right to life. Students use life story writing next to recount 

experiences that may help them find thesis. Write for a global multiethnic and ageless audience. Stories 

can indeed reach all readers. To write, we engage memories of readings, life experiences and 

imagination. Accordingly, these three patterns compose voice on the written page. But writing is an 

essential skill needed for human dignity. Through a student-directed pedagogical model, this session 

looks at writing classes that fuse into a learning community for reflection, discovery, and peer editing 

for student motivation and success. Actively engage students to explore archetypical universes created 

by current imaginative writers focusing on mythological literary criticism and film theory. 

 

 

 



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2. Method 

Case Study 

Methodology of the Case Study begins on Week 2 of English 102, an online course in Literature and 

Composition at the University of Maryland Global Campus. I suggest that through videos, and the 

theory of blended classroom and active learning, I may gain more retention from my students of the 

material that I present due to repetition of the course material in a video setting. stronger and clearer 

model when I create and post videos into the Announcements page. I also experienced balanced 

teaching and sustained my own capacity to reach students by using my own videos based to frame a 

story line that offered planning and outline, writing developmental paragraphs, writing a literary 

critique, and comparing two short stories. 

Active Learning 

I encourage high-quality training with active learning techniques such as presenting major points, 

defining the week’s study goals, and offering sample ideas by modeling the required activities. For 

example, I explain writing a literary analysis through a short video about one particular critique in my 

book Spatializing Social Justice, Literary Critiques. Correlate the video title with the weekly activities 

to maximize retention and reinforce learning. Videos in Announcements allow students to use 

metacognition to enhance their next writing activity. Videos in announcements introduce the study 

week. Videos are metacognitive activities which enlighten us to better writing. In fact, we promote the 

use of metacognition to begin the outlines and purpose, hermeneutics to approach the research, and 

finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as a social discourse. Closed captioned videos are also 

used in this study. I mention to students in the video transcript original suggestions for metacognitive 

planning: “Read the story several times and argue something that means something to you, that you 

learned or that you felt or that you think the author wants you to gain—something that the author wants 

teach you or share with you” (DiEdwardo Video transcript). Further, I teach writing in the transcript 

which I also share in the course announcements:  

Zora Neale Hurston was known during the Harlem Renaissance for her wit. her folk writing 

style. Stephanie Powell Watts winner of the Pushcart Prize has received the Southern Women 

Writers’ Conferences Best Emerging Writer Award. Place in the tale Black Death is set in 

Orlando, Zora Neale Hurston’s hometown. Zora writes authentic expressions to define place. 

Places serve a mythic representations. Since the creator of the story uses literary imagination 

to craft artistically, formal study continues for me. Writing about place derives from reflection. 

As I read excerpts from my chapter, I emphasize the study of the story and the author and 

self-reflection on the story (DiEdwardo Video Transcript).  

 

 



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3. Result 

How do we overcome struggles that students may face in finishing weekly discussion and assignments? 

Do original video lectures enhance learning and maximize retention in online classes? What are the 

effects on my teaching and my performance as a Professor when I create models? How do video 

lectures help me to present metacognitive training? How do videos maximize retention for all the 

students who participate in the class weekly, who post discussions, and who are writing papers?  

Videos in Announcements allow students to use metacognition to enhance their next writing activity. 

Videos in announcements introduce the study week. Videos are metacognitive activities which 

enlighten us to better writing. In fact, we promote the use of metacognition to begin the outlines and 

purpose, hermeneutics to approach the research, and finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as 

a social discourse.  

My teaching strategy of using videos that I create balance and sustain my own capacity to teach the 

course. I participate seven days during every study week of the eight week online class. The results 

were reported in a Zoom Community Meet Up at UMGC on November 13, 2020 to the Global Campus. 

I demonstrated the script that I create to enhance the presentation of videos. I use specific pedagogy 

and organize the videos according to the learning objectives of the study week. I showed enthusiasm 

for teaching, since I extended the weekly content by using my own videos based on my own writing to 

frame a story line that offered planning and outline, writing developmental paragraphs, writing a 

literary critique, and comparing two short stories. Extend classroom material on specific topics with 

original videos that are posted to Announcements. Presenting to the faculty of the university where I 

teach was also inspiring. I am grateful. 
 

4. Discussion 

Hermeneutics is the practice and theory of interpretation and understanding of science, art, education, 

and philosophy. “A Hermeneutic Approach for Conducting Literature Reviews and Literature 

Searches” by Sebastian K. Boeil and Dubravka Cecez-Kecmnanoc inspires us to use the hermeneutic 

approach. The authors propose a hermeneutic framework that integrates analysis and interpretation of 

literature and the search for literature. Furthermore, the authors explain two hermeneutic circles: the 

search and acquisition circle and analysis and interpretation circle (Boeil et al.). Moving toward the 

goal of poetic praxis, teaching tolerance, we incorporate hermeneutic arcs into the curriculum to 

organize and to interpret information. 

Applying hermeneutical approaches constitutes a text, a respect for history of the author of the text and 

the significance of the text, and understanding approaches to writing about the text. The hermeneutic 

arc offers us methodology for interpretation. “Hermeneutics, in France as elsewhere abroad, is 

frequently associated with the work of Paul Ricer” (Frey, p. viii.). In 2011, in World Applied Science 



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Journal, 15(11), 1623-1629, Ghasemi et al. defined Hermeneutics as the science of interpretation. “In 

the field of education, hermeneutics has played a relatively important role in understanding text” 

(Ghasemi et al.). The authors site the hermeneutic method according to Paul Ricoeur. We accomplish 

understanding by explanation, understanding, and appropriation which Ricoeur called “hermeneutic 

arc”. Explanation explores the nature of the text; understanding explores the question which the text 

presents; and appropriation expands knowledge and perception. Jeff Malpas and Hans-Helmuth Gander, 

editors of The Routledge Companion to Hermeneutics, establish Hermeneutic origins, explain 

Hermeneutic thinkers, ask Hermeneutic questions, describe Hermeneutic engagements, challenges and 

dialogues, and conclude with the future of hermeneutics. 

Literature is a social discourse. Rooted in the principles of the Aristotelian philosophy, I incorporate 

the theoretical basis of art as imitation. My pedagogy results in teaching themes that enliven the 21st 

century student to create imaginative meta-fiction and to enhance classes with projects that are 

alternatives to essay, to inspire students. Read the Poetics by Aristotle. In doing so, set criterion for 

interpretation which reflects and questions fundamental assumptions (Malpas et al.). Her “Poetry 

Festival Pedagogical Project” assigns a writing process journal format with drafting, reflections on 

music lyrics as poetry, and the three attributes of hermeneutical arc including text, explanation of the 

text, understanding in reflections, and her original musicality contextual framework based on her case 

study research. 

Argument summary captures the use of the hermeneutic arc and metacognitive pedagogy. My students 

participated in think, pair, share in a blog to introduce a themed unit of writing. Summary writing as a 

metacognitive writing pre-writing exercise allows students to use critical reading skills to enhance their 

next writing activity. Reading to doubt or exploratory writing in separate blogs with one theme offers 

reflective writing practices to discover style and personal voice or alternative topics. Thinking about 

literature through the lens of the hermeneutic arc and with metacognitive activities may enlighten us to 

better writing. In fact, we promote the use of metacognition to begin the outlines and purpose, 

hermeneutics to approach the research, and finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as a social 

discourse, Metacognition is thinking about thinking. Flavell coined the term metacognition in the 

seventies of the last century (Flavell). Combine hermeneutic and metacognitive models to ask how a 

particular effect is achieved or why an ending seems right but also what a particular line means and 

what a literary work tells us about the human condition. 

 

Acknowledgement 

Thanks to University of Maryland Global Campus for inviting me to speak about my case study at 

Community Meet Up on November 13, 2020.  

Thanks to Vernon Press for publishing my work which I was editor for and contributor to: 



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Hermeneutics, Metacognition, and Writing. This volume investigates the social functionality of actions 

as an essential criterion of study. It focuses on hermeneutics: interpretation through the lens of 

philosophy of metacognition. 

Vital contributions to the book include several chapters by me, which explore various facets of the 

central topic, including the intersectionality of hermeneutics, metacognition, and semiotics, as well as 

social movements.  

This collection of critiques and case studies examines the imagined cultural landscape of specific works 

and associated activities such as fine art, music, poetry, and digital humanities, which aim to initiate 

self-monitoring as metacognition, or meta-reflection, by creating interior interpersonal space to 

overcome adversity. This edited volume will be of particular interest to scholars and students of textual 

hermeneutics as it relates to prose writing and artistic works in non-verbal media. 

 

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