This qualitative, design-based research study resulted in a proposal for a comprehensive set of best instructional practices immersed in a learning trajectory, outlining the tools, processes and the content development for online asynchronous, text-based learning in graduate level professional development courses. The outcome provides a rich description of essential instructional strategies for merging the tools, processes and the content development in a social metacognitive constructivist instructional framework. The learning trajectory presents an explanatory framework that interweaves social, teaching, and cognitive presences towards the engagement of a virtual community of learners to expand their individual and shared knowledge through learning tasks and tools. The trajectory identifies a process for moving from "informal ideas, through successive refinements of representation, articulation, and reflection towards increasingly complex concepts over time" (Confrey & Maloney, 2012).