If you are unfamiliar with Top Hat, read on to learn how incorporating this software in your classroom may help you to increase participation, save time, and better prepare your students for tests.
Top Hat is a software program that can be accessed on a computer or a mobile device. Teachers can create extensions of their classroom on this online platform that students can sign into and interact with in multiple ways. The simplest function of Top Hat is attendance-taking. See the ODEE instructions on taking attendance with Top Hat. With Top Hat, students will log into your class and a simple button allows you to take a snapshot of who is in attendance. This feature allows instructors to save attendance records for all students over the course of the semester. These attendance records can also be exported from Top Hat to Canvas for grading purposes.
In addition to attendance, Top Hat allows you to survey or quiz your classroom. Students who are logged in will see questions that you post, and can enter their own answer. Once results are in, Top Hat will show a graph of the student responses, thus allowing teachers to make course corrections immediately and to gauge student comprehension during lectures. Unlike old clicker systems, Top Hat only requires a laptop or mobile device and Wifi connection. Later, students can log in to their own Top Hat account to see the questions that were asked in class and review their own answers.
Top Hat at OSU can be found at go.osu.edu/tophat. If you would like help getting started in Top Hat, contact the CON IT department at CON-InformationTechnology@osu.edu and we will happily help you out!
Some further resources and information can be found below: