Top Hat is built around live participation: a question pops up during the lecture, you answer on the spot, and your professor reads the room from the results. That makes it a great record of exactly which ideas tripped you up, but the in-class window closes fast, so the real learning happens afterward when you go back through the questions. The main way to do that review with Lensia is its sidebar chat, a panel that opens next to Top Hat and stays there while you work a topic out over several messages. How to study with AI for Top Hat coursework mostly comes down to that loop: turn the questions and slides Top Hat keeps into practice you actually understand before the exam. Lensia is a Chrome extension, and when you just want a fast read on one saved question, its floating panel grabs it off the screen in a couple of seconds. Install Lensia free.
Be honest about where you use it. Lensia is a study aid for reviewing material, understanding concepts, and preparing before an assessment. Using it to answer a live, graded Top Hat question during class, when AI is not permitted, is academic dishonesty. Everything below assumes you are reviewing and practicing, not answering a graded item in real time.
Start in the sidebar chat
Reviewing a Top Hat question is rarely one question and done. You get one thing wrong, and it turns out you misread the concept behind it, and now you want to test that concept a few more ways. That back-and-forth is what the sidebar is for. Open it from the Lensia icon in your Chrome toolbar, and a chat docks in Chrome's side panel next to your Top Hat course. It is on every plan.
Because it keeps the whole conversation, the sidebar fits the review loop:
- Conversation history stays between sessions, so the questions you worked through last week are still there the night before the midterm.
- Bookmarks save the explanations you know you will reread.
- A model picker lets you start a quick recall question on a fast model, then switch to a stronger one when a numeric problem needs careful steps.
Paste a question you missed, read the walkthrough, then ask "give me two more like this" and attempt them cold. On Basic and Pro, the sidebar can also run a web search or fetch a URL to pull in a definition your notes skipped, and Pro adds agent mode, which lets the AI read your open lecture tab and chain a few steps before it answers. For the full surface breakdown, read how Lensia works.
The floating panel: grab a saved question fast
Some questions do not need a conversation. You are scrolling your Top Hat history, one item stops you, and you just want it explained. Press Ctrl+Shift+X, drag a box around the question and its answer choices, and a worked explanation floats up on top of the page in a few seconds. The page stays visible underneath, so you can read both together.
- Ctrl+Shift+F repeats your last capture area without redrawing the box, which is handy when you work through a stack of similar review items.
- Ctrl+Shift+E hides the panel and brings it back.
- Ask Mode, a switch on the same panel and on every plan including Free, turns the capture into a typing box: write your own question and attach up to three images if one screenshot cannot hold the whole thing.
If the text is hard to read, it falls back to sending the picture to a model that reads images directly.
Top Hat question types and how to study them
- Word answer and multiple choice are the most common. Capture or paste the full question with every option, and Lensia explains which answer holds up and why the others fall apart. Then cover it and answer yourself.
- Numeric answer: include the values and units. Lensia works the calculation step by step so you can redo the math on your own.
- Click-on-target and image questions: capture the slide. Lensia reads the diagram directly and explains what each labeled region is.
- True or false: it gives the verdict with a one-sentence reason, so you learn the rule instead of memorizing a fact.
For how Top Hat review compares to LMS platforms, read Canvas, Moodle and Blackboard tips every student should know.
Free, Basic, or Pro for studying Top Hat
| Feature | Free | Basic | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sidebar chat with history & bookmarks | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Capture & floating explanation (Ctrl+Shift+X) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Quick Capture (Ctrl+Shift+F), Ask Mode | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Quick + Standard models, Lensia Max router | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Usage allowance | starter | ~10× Free | highest |
| Reasoning toggle (on/off) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced models | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Web search & Fetch URL in the sidebar | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom Instructions | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agent mode (multi-step in the sidebar) | — | — | ✓ |
| Auto-Solve (Vocabulary.com only) | — | — | ✓ |
Free is enough to try Lensia on a few review questions, and it includes the sidebar chat and Ask Mode from day one. Basic gives about ten times the usage plus the reasoning toggle, web search, fetch URL, custom instructions, and the Advanced models (GPT-5.4, GPT-5.5, Gemini 3.1 Pro, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Opus 4.8). Pro adds the highest allowance, agent mode, and Auto-Solve on Vocabulary.com. Every tier can leave the model on Lensia Max, which picks a fitting Quick or Standard model per question and takes 15 percent off that request. Sign in with Google to activate.
For how each plan performs across platforms, read the best AI tool for college students guide.
Start before your next Top Hat lecture
The best time to learn the material is before you need it. Install Lensia from the Chrome Web Store, sign in with Google, open the sidebar on a question you got wrong, and reach for the floating panel on the next slide you want explained. Turn the questions you missed in class into the ones you ace on the exam.