This study analysed the relationships between teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online learning environments (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000), with an emphasis on examining ways in which the design of instructor presentation formats relates to student responses in discussion forums. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to determine the nature of student responses, primarily through the lens of the Practical Inquiry Model (Garrison, 2007), by coding all text in the initial student responses to content-based questions. Twenty participants were randomly assigned to two sections in a graduate-level, teacher education course. One group was provided with metacognitive prompts throughout the asynchronous lecture presentation. They were asked to pause the presentation and document their thinking relative to the prompts. The other group was not asked to pause and write during the presentation, nor were there any metacognitive prompts embedded in their presentation. A Pearson's chi-square analysis was used to analyse the coding of the text, and a form of text analytics was used to seek out the nature of student learning and cognitive presence. There was no significant association found between the design of the instructor presentation and levels in the Practical Inquiry Model. Furthermore, the themes, number of total themes, and word count remained consistent between the two groups.