Early Bird

Hypothes.is available for all courses starting in spring

The digital annotation tool fosters student success by building community, critical thinking and a deeper understanding of readings.

By KC Coburn

November 29, 2021

Students and faculty members at Metropolitan State University of Denver have made over 72,000 annotations to 1,043 assignments as part of a pilot of Hypothes.is, a digital annotation tool imbedded in Canvas. After reviewing usage data and feedback, the tool has been approved for use by all instructors in all courses starting in the spring term.

Hypothes.is enables students and teachers to have conversations in the margins of digital texts. Using social annotation provides new ways to foster student success by building community, critical thinking and a deeper understanding of readings. Hyphothes.is was built with accessibility in mind.

“Hypothes.is can be like sitting down for coffee with your students while discussing ancient texts or current events,” said Ann Obermann, Ph.D., assistant professor of Social Work. “It fosters critical thinking as students comment and critique material while at the same time respond to other student thoughts and experiences.”

Obermann uses the application to facilitate knowledge checks, text comparison, student interpretation, guided reading and more. Feedback from students has been positive, Obermann said, including “I love Hypothes.is because it isn’t busy work” and “I love seeing what other students are thinking; it helps me clarify concepts and learn.”

MSU Denver’s Hypothes.is pilot began last December with the goal of increasing opportunities for student interaction and discussion within virtual learning experiences. With usage rapidly increasing and faculty and students reporting a positive experience, the new license is expected to continue for the long term and Hypothes.is will remain a part of the suite of course tools available to instructors via Canvas. Instructors interested in learning more can review Center for Teaching, Learning and Design tutorials on how to use the tool or more in-depth pedagogical takeaways from Jeremy Dean, Ph.D., vice president of education at Hypothes.is.

Hypothes.is resides in Canvas and can be structured for use by groups of students as defined by the instructor. In a class setting, students might explore a website, review a PDF or read a digital article on a course topic and comment on portions they agree and disagree with. In addition to promoting active reading of assignments, this method of engagement around the actual text and between students provides a more dynamic connection to the text than the typical “post once, reply twice” discussions often used in online coursework.

To learn more about the use of Hypothes.is as a social-reading and collaborative-learning tool, instructors can review the CTLD’s Use Hypothes.is tutorial.