Chances are, you’ve already heard of Top Hat, but for those of you that haven’t… Top Hat is a platform that allows you to gather attendance, deploy in-class polling, create interactive live-streamed lectures, secure exams for your students, and so much more.
You can start using it within Canvas right now or make a plan for integrating the platform into a future course. In either case, this blog will help you understand what to do after you’ve mastered the basics of Top Hat.
If you haven’t already created a Top Hat account and integrated it to Canvas, we encourage you to read A Beginner’s Guide to Top Hat. Here, we’ve linked video trainings that cover frequently asked questions and provide examples from your colleagues to help you become a Top Hat expert.
#1 Attendance Tracking
#2 Pages & iFrames
Enhance comprehension and encourage students to complete reading assignments by breaking up large swathes of text with videos and questions using Pages and iFrames.
Top Hat also uses these pages to deliver their interactive textbook feature. If you use Open Educational Resources (OER), you’ll find that Pages and iFrames are helpful tools when authoring custom content.
#3 Click-on-Target Questions
This unique question type allows you to create a heatmap of student responses. View the video below to see an example of click-on-target questions in action.
#4 Discussion Questions
Discussions are essential when looking for subjective and interpretative responses.
#5 Reading & Testing
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about Top Hat, and the ways it can enhance your course. We believe by providing a platform for students to collaborate, review lecture slides and answer questions during class time, your students will be able to learn more effectively than ever before.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to CIRT for help improving the classroom experience. We want to ensure a friendly, accessible environment for students and faculty across the UNF campus and beyond. Email us at cirtlab@unf.edu.
