Service Overview
Top Hat is now the official UCO supported classroom clicker/polling solution. A panel of faculty advisors working with the Technology Resource Center (TRC) recommended Top Hat after an extensive evaluation of current solutions. Top Hat is a fantastic addition to the technology available in the TRC for creating transformative teaching and learning opportunities.
Top Hat: Classroom allows instructors to leverage students’ devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets) to take attendance, launch discussions/questions, and get real-time feedback. Designed to create an active classroom experience, Top Hat can provide a solution to engage every student, during every class session. With its integration in Learn@UCO, instructors also have the ability to sync class rosters and grades, all without the need to log in to multiple systems.
Available To
Current Instructors and Students
Features
Create an engaged learning environment where every student, from the front to the back row, can participate and have a voice.
- Easily embed a Top Hat Classroom discussion prompt between your slides to spark a dialogue, check for understanding or award participation points
- Allow students to participate anonymously so that they feel comfortable sharing thoughts, no matter the subject matter
- Students can use interactive features to vote responses up in a queue, helping you identify common viewpoints or misconceptions
- Flexible response options, including the ability to respond with a drawing
Using Top Hat Classroom allows instructors to automatically verify whether a student is physically present in class and auto-assign grades for attendance and participation.
- Easily take attendance by prompting students to sign in on their devices using a unique code
- Top Hat Classroom uses proprietary technology to verify the physical location of students, ensuring that only those students attending get counted
- Excused absence options built-in to provide flexibility
Interactive teaching and learning come together in a synchronous experience with Top Hat Classroom.
- Instructors can sync their lecture slides with students’ devices so they can follow along in real-time
- Students are unable to move ahead of the instructor, so their attention remains focused on what’s being presented
- Share student responses and correct answers to questions posed in class using visual graphs, word clouds and heat maps
- Once your lecture is complete, you can assign slides in review mode, allowing students to download and study at any time
Manage all lecture materials and interactive questions online.
- Upload your slides and animations directly into Top Hat Classroom and organize as needed
- Embed interactive polling questions between your slides to create one seamless presentation aligned to your lecture plan
- Choose from various interactive question types: multiple choice, word answer, numeric answer, fill-in-the-blank, matching, click-on-target, sorting and more
- Streamline lecture prep by importing free interactive questions from the Top Hat Marketplace
Track student performance and automatically assign grading weight to interactive questions, attendance and participation, all uploaded directly into the Top Hat gradebook.
- All responses and participation grades are captured instantly in the Top Hat gradebook for students to access any time
- Grades can be exported easily to your LMS
- Analyze auto-graded results to gauge comprehension and identify concepts to review or reinforce
Learn more about Top Hat Classroom on their website at http://tophat.com/classroom/
Getting Started
Instructors interested in integrating Top Hat into their courses or would like to learn more about the product and what it can do for your classroom should complete the interest form by clicking on the link in the top right. You will be contacted within 48 business hours to get started. Students should contact their instructor with questions on getting started.
Training and Assistance
Consultations and other resources are available to assist instructors with creating their courses/questions, learning to use the system, importing presentations and much more. Complete the form and you will be contacted with additional information.
Related Services
Fees/Additional Costs
Faculty - No charge
Students - Contact the UCO Bookstore for cost