West Virginia Universitys Eberly College of Arts and Sciences is installing cutting-edge technology into several classrooms in order to enhance the educational experience of students. Personal Response System technology is currently being placed in the Life Sciences Building, Clark Hall, Armstrong Hall and Brooks Hall. These hand-held devices provide instant feedback between the student and an instructor.

The PRS system allows students to respond to questions posed during a class using the small remote controls. Various attendance point systems can be linked to responses and saved into WebCT, the Web-based course management system used at WVU . WebCT provides instructors and students access to course materials from anywhere at anytime.

With the PRS system, an instructor can administer a quiz to examine if the class completed their assigned reading. Before taking the quiz, a student could choose a high confidence, medium confidence or low confidence indicator on his or her remote control. If a student chooses a high confidence indicator and responds correctly to the question, then the student receives more points than a student who chooses a low confidence indicator and responded correctly. However, if a high indicator student responds incorrectly, then that student is deducted more points than a low indicator student who responded incorrectly.

Results of previous tests or a test being conducted in class can be graphed and displayed immediately, as well as sorted for later analysis. An example would be displaying how many students who got below 70 percent on the last test answered a certain question correctly. The PRS system also has the ability to integrate with PowerPoint.

After attending a demonstration session, associate dean Joan Gorham explained that the PRS system seemed to be a more efficient tool than simply coming to class, listening to an instructor lecture and taking notes. During the demonstration session, her group was tested on their knowledge of art. She explained that the questions that she answered incorrectly are now more vivid in her memory than if she would have written the answer down.

This installation of the PRS system in several classrooms within the Eberly College is one of the Colleges latest efforts to use cutting-edge technology in educating students. This particular upgrade has unlimited potential which will see an improvement in the studentsclassroom experience.