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► Enroll in the Hypothesis course
What is Hypothesis?
Hypothesis is a social annotation tool that allows students to read and comment on a text together. They can highlight and annotate readings online and to respond to one another’s annotations.
This Hypothesis video provides a one-minute overview.
Why use Hypothesis?
- Students annotate together, reacting to each other’s ideas and collectively building knowledge and understanding.
- Annotations offer instructors direct evidence of how students are reacting and engaging with the material.
- Works with a range of content, such as articles, web pages, images, and YouTube video transcripts
- Can be used across disciplines: annotate historical documents with context, analyze literary texts, define scientific terms in research articles, debate philosophical arguments, critique media transcripts, or connect environmental studies readings to real-world examples, etc.
- For some students who are less likely to participate verbally in class discussions, annotating text can be more comfortable and give them a safer opportunity for engaging in text-based conversations.
- With their own guiding annotations, instructors can demonstrate critical thinking, raise important questions or considerations when reading articles, or showcase strategies for critically analyzing particularly dense articles.
- Hypothesis is integrated with Canvas, and student annotations and their replies are viewable in SpeedGrader. Also supports small groups and automated grading.
Resources
- Enroll in the Hypothesis course: this self-paced course introduces faculty to Hypothesis, including various examples, setup instructions and sample student guidelines
- Hypothesis 101 (video): the full recorded overview of Hypothesis, how to engage students and how to use it in Canvas
- Liquid Margins: a podcast from Hypothesis that features educators using Hypothesis in a variety of ways, subjects and assignments
- Hypothesis Student Guide: helpful guide for students encountering Hypothesis, includes an explanation of icons and troubleshooting steps
- Sample Syllabus Language for Hypothesis: just a starting point, customize for your syllabi
Support
UCSC Support: For support with this tool, visit Instructional Technology Office Hours or contact ITS (UCSC ITS Hypothesis page).
Hypothesis Support can be reached at support@hypothes.is. It helps to include the assignment name, what went wrong, screenshots, and which browser you were using.