Hypothesis
What is Hypothesis?
Hypothesis is an easy-to-use pedagogical tool that enables students and instructors to have conversations in the margins of digital texts. This collaborative annotation tool is integrated with Canvas and appears as a sidebar next to assigned readings in Hypothesis assignments.
Adding Hypothesis to readings in Canvas supports student success by placing active discussion right on top of course readings, enabling students and teachers to add comments and start conversations in the margins of texts. Hypothesis lets you take notes, view and reply to other notes, along with other features. Using social annotation gives you a new way to foster student success by building community, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of readings.
Why use Hypothesis?
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Critical Thinking: Help students develop academic skills like deep reading and persuasive writing.
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Simplicity: Get your students annotating their already assigned reading quickly and with support.
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Community: Foster student connections they annotate and learn together.
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Inclusion: Make space for students to engage in class discussion and develop ideas at their own pace.
Leveraging Social Annotation in the Age of AI
If assignments are designed to evaluate what a student can produce, rather than account for the process in achieving the product, it is easier for students to leverage generative AI to create that product. We should then reflect on how we can incorporate the process into our grading. The Hypothesis social annotation tool allows us to emphasize process over product, encourages continued engagement from students, and cultivates student voice.
Webinar: How Can Social Annotation Help (59:27)
In this video, Christie DeCarolis explores the power of social annotation in enhancing collaboration and knowledge-sharing, and, in order to work around the emergence of AI tools, as well as how social annotation can be used with these AI tools to improve student learning outcomes, facilitate research collaboration, and support comprehensive reading.
Features
Hypothesis lets you take notes, view and reply to other notes, along with other features on a website or PDF.
Highlighting
To create a highlight, select text in the assignment and select Highlight from the popup. Highlights are private to individual users.
Annotations and Page Notes
To create an annotation, select text in the assignment and choose Annotate, then add your text to the annotation card and select Post. Page notes aren’t linked to any particular passage within the assigned text. Click on the page note button to leave a page note.
- Privacy: Annotations are public to the instructor and other students in the course by default, but they can be set to private with the “Only Me” option.
- Conversation: Reply to others’ annotations by clicking the reply arrow icon. Discussions are posted in a thread format.
- Format: Format your annotation with bold, italics, quotes, links, inserted images, math notation, bullet points, and numbered lists.
- Tags: Tags can be added to annotations to help you organize your notes and categorize your thinking.
- Edit/Delete: Annotations that you write can be edited or deleted using the pencil and garbage bin icons.
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New/Updated Annotations: When someone else has written a new annotation or updated an existing annotation, Hypothesis will display a red icon at the top of the Sidebar. Click on this icon to display all of the new and changed annotations.
- Search and Sort: Annotations can be searched through and sorted using the magnifying glass and arrow icons on the upper bar.
- Grading: Annotations can be graded with SpeedGrader.
Instructor Guide
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Step-by-Step Guide
Video Tutorial
How to set up Hypothesis readings through Canvas Modules
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Coming Soon
How to set up Hypothesis readings through Canvas Assignments
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How to use Canvas groups to create Hypothesis reading groups
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How to grade Hypothesis annotations in Canvas
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Student Guide
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Step-by-Step Guide
Video Tutorial
Student guide to Hypothesis in Canvas
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Annotation tips for students
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Coming Soon
How to add links and images to your annotations
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Coming Soon
How to add videos to your annotations
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Coming Soon
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