What is Top Hat?
Top Hat is a teaching and learning platform that helps instructors increase student participation and engagement. Faculty can use Top Hat to deliver interactive course materials, ask live polling questions, take attendance, facilitate discussions, and assign homework or other activities. Students can participate using any internet-connected device, including laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Texas State University has partnered with Top Hat to provide its engagement platform to all students, faculty, and staff at no additional cost. In courses where an instructor uses a Top Hat textbook or other content for a fee, students will be asked to purchase access during the registration process and can do so directly from the institution’s bookstore.
Getting Started
Create a Top Hat Faculty Account
To get started using Top Hat, sign up and create an account at tophat.com/start. Log in using your Texas State University credentials, and for a more detailed overview, review this quick-start guide.
Integrate Top Hat with Canvas
Top Hat integrates with Canvas to simplify course access and grade management. To activate the integration, follow this custom guide for Texas State University.
Student User Guide
This guide is a centralized directory designed to help students navigate every aspect of the platform, from initial account setup and course enrollment to mastering advanced study tools and mobile features.
Consider adding this suggested syllabus language to help students access, register for, and navigate Top Hat.
Top Features to Explore
Automated Attendance
Automated Attendance allows faculty to:
- Automate attendance in any in-person or online course so faculty can spend more time with their students
- Use geolocation technology to verify who's attending and who might be missing class
Students are able to:
- Easily confirm their attendance using Top Hat or SMS at the start of a lecture
In-Class Engagement
In-Class Engagement Features allow faculty to:
- Enhance student engagement with short quizzes, interactive polls, and discussion questions that students can respond to from any device
- Test student knowledge with more than 14 question types such as matching, word answer, and click-on-target
- Create their own questions or let Top Hat Ace, an AI-powered assistant, generate prompts based on lecture content
- Gauge student learning and comprehension with real-time data from engagement activities
Interactive Assessments
Interactive Assessments allow faculty to:
- Embed low-stakes, formative assessments into lectures and readings to check understanding and address learning gaps in real time
- Draw on more than 14 different question types to create high-impact assessments that let students show what they know and how they think
- Create authentic assessments with video questions and AI-powered role-play scenarios that help students apply knowledge, build problem-solving skills, and prep for the real world
- Offer immediate feedback with targeted hints, multiple attempts, and detailed explanations throughout homework assignments
Additional Classroom Features
There are two content areas faculty can explore in addition to Top Hat's engagement tools.
Interactive Etexts
Top Hat’s digital textbooks include multimedia, diverse perspectives, and auto-graded assessments that integrate with Canvas. These low-cost or affordably priced titles can be accessed on Top Hat’s Content Catalog.
Interactive Openstax
Top Hat has partnered with OpenStax Publishing to enhance a number of titles with interactive features, including embedded auto-graded assessment, for a richer learning experience. These eTexts are available to all TXST students at no cost through the Top Hat platform.
General Help & Support
Top Hat Customer Support
Top Hat’s dedicated support is available to all faculty, staff, and students and can be reached:
- Through the in-app live chat
- By emailing support@tophat.com
- By dialing (888) 663-5491
- By submitting the Support Contact Form
Dedicated Faculty Support
Have a question? Contact TXST’s dedicated Faculty Engagement Manager, Tara Furey, at tara.furey@tophat.com or schedule a 1:1 support session.
Live & On-Demand Webinars
Sign up for an upcoming webinar to help you drive engagement in your courses before, during, and after class.
Custom Solutions
Create tailored course materials with Top Hat’s instructional design and project management support, meeting your timeline and affordability goals.
For custom solutions contact Connor O'Kane at connor.okane@tophat.com.