Top Hat continues to develop its platform with new features designed to support active learning, simplify course management, improve accessibility, and expand AI-powered teaching features.
Free professional development course
Top Hat is offering a free, self-paced 90-minute course led by Flower Darby. Learning Lab: Joyful Teaching in Every Class explores practical, research-backed teaching strategies that can help increase student engagement, motivation, and success. Participants will learn small changes that can strengthen student connections and encourage participation and persistence. Upon completion, instructors receive a certificate that can be added to their professional development records. Access the course.
New platform features
Proximity-based secure attendance
Top Hat introduced a new mobile-only attendance option that uses short-range Bluetooth signals to verify student proximity. This feature helps instructors confidently track attendance by confirming students are physically present in the classroom, even in spaces with limited internet connectivity.
Automated Canvas roster management
For courses using Top Hat's Canvas integration, the overnight roster sync now recognizes when a student has dropped the course, automatically removing them from the Top Hat course and reducing manual roster maintenance.
Course-based roles
Top Hat now supports course-specific role synchronization through its Canvas integration. Users can hold different roles across courses while maintaining a single account. For example, an individual may be an instructor or TA in one course and a student in another.
Page editor improvements
The Page editor and viewer have been updated with a cleaner, more consistent design. Improvements include enhanced font sizing, higher-contrast colors for accessibility, and better alignment of images, tables, code blocks, and interactive content.
AI-powered enhancements
Query Ace in Lecture Insights
A new prompt field in Lecture Insights allows instructors to analyze class session data using natural-language questions. Instructors can enter their own prompts or choose from suggested options, such as identifying participation gaps. Top Hat Ace generates insights to help instructors prepare for upcoming classes.
Missing alt text notifications
To support accessible course design, Top Hat now alerts instructors when images are missing alternative text (alt text). The notification includes a count of affected images and provides AI-generated alt text suggestions through Top Hat Ace.