Case Study: Ohio University improves Pre-Calculus pass rates with Top Hat Pages

Ohio University boosts Pre-Calculus pass rates to 82% with Top Hat

Ohio University math professor Blake Regan faced a challenge with student engagement and preparedness in his Pre-Calculus course. The open educational resources (OER) he was using were low quality, and students were not completing readings or coming to class ready to participate. He also struggled with a multi-platform approach that sent students to different tools for homework and quizzes. To address this, he turned to the vendor Top Hat and its product, Top Hat Pages.

Using Top Hat Pages, Professor Regan created an interactive, custom textbook that housed all materials in one place. The solution included embedded lecture videos, integrations with graphing software like Desmos, and end-of-chapter quizzes. Top Hat provided analytics to identify struggling students and tools like reflection papers to support them. The results were significant: his course achieved an average pass rate of 82%, a substantial increase over the university's average of 64%, and 92% of his students went on to pass their subsequent Calculus II course.

Ohio University