In this study, 7th grade students were observed completing a series of lessons in an online science course to explore their thinking and strategies for: (1) using curriculum resources for learning, (2) developing thinking and strategies for self-assessing "assessment readiness," and (3) exploring the relationship between resource use and student grade in science, end-of-lesson assessment score, and student learning style. A convergent-parallel mixed methods research design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the same phase of this study, in order to merge the results and gain a greater understanding of student learning in the online environment. Observations of students completing lessons online, survey, and interview data were collected. Qualitative results indicate that students demonstrated various levels of metacognitive strategy use in choosing online curriculum resources and in determining their readiness for lesson assessment. Quantitative results indicated that resource use was higher for multi-media learning resources and lower for notes-based resources. Use of at least 70% of lesson resources overall showed a relationship with a higher student grade in science and higher end-of-lesson assessment score. Student learning style showed mixed results related to resource use. Continued mixed-methods research observing student learning in the online environment is needed to better understand the individual student experience of learning online, and to inform specific interventions within the online learning environment to support learning as students transition into more effective self-directed learners.