Top Hat | Student Response Systems
What Is It?
A Student Response System (SRS) is used in a classroom to rapidly collect answers to questions from every student, and if desired, to graphically display a summary of data. This helps instructors activate the classroom as well as peers to engage with each other while interacting with complex materials. Indiana University has an enterprise license for Top Hat so instructors and students can use it free of charge.
Top Hat utilizes no separate hardware but rather asks students to use the devices they already have with them in class including a phone, tablet, or laptop. No additional hardware needs to be installed on the computer to run polling and Top Hat is integrated with Canvas and has the ability to synchronize grades. .
What Can I Do with It?
Take Attendance | Top Hat features secure attendance technology that includes location information from students’ phones in recording class attendance data. Learn more about using Top Hat for accurate attendance and class participation at IUB.
Student Engagement | Top Hat can be used to increase student engagement during class, to assess student preparation and learning, and to seek students’ opinions and attitudes.
Peer Instruction | Using Top Hat can be especially useful for peer instruction, in which students are presented with a thought-provoking question and allowed to submit an individual answer. After the results are displayed, students discuss their answers and reasoning in pairs or small groups. The question can be posed again and the instructor could prompt conversation around how the results did or did not change.
Low Stakes Assessments | Top Hat scores can be associated with an individual student, therefore can use utilized to administer low-stakes assessments.
Helpful Resources
Top Hat Resources – video introduction for students and video trainings for instructors