Teresa Wills

  The 21st Century college student is likely to be older than traditional students.  She's more likely to be female, working and Hispanic or African-American. She's more likely to be a mom. She's less likely to attend college full time or finish in four years. This American RadioWorks documentary explores how universities are adapting to their new students. We visit Amherst College, a leader among elite schools in recruiting and serving non-traditional students.

There's plenty of controversy surrounding the Common Core, a new set of education standards adopted by most states. Getting less attention is what the standards actually say, and the fact that many teachers like them. This American RadioWorks documentary takes listeners into classrooms to explore how the standards are changing teaching and learning. Many teachers say those changes are desperately needed, but some are worried about new Common Core tests and whether they will help improve schools or get in the way of better education.

Until recently, we didn't know much about the best ways to learn. Now that's changing. Over recent decades, experts working in cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience have opened new windows into how the brain works, and how we can learn to learn better. In this American RadioWorks program, we look at some of the big ideas coming out of brain science. We meet the researchers who are unlocking the secrets of how the brain acquires and holds on to knowledge. And we introduce listeners to the teachers and students who are trying to apply that knowledge in the real world.

For many Americans, Hawaii is a tropical playground, the place of surf, sun and dream vacations. Behind the tourist façade, though, is one of the most unique multicultural states in the nation, one still dealing with the complicated legacy of the circumstances under which it become part of this country. And so much of how Hawaii is now comes back to one game-changing element: sugar. For decades, long before it was a tourist’s paradise, what Hawaii did was grow sugar.

Do you feel happy today? How about happily disgusted? Maybe sadly surprised, or sadly disgusted? Human emotions are complex. But at least they’re the common language that unites us all – except when they don’t. A tribe in Namibia might interpret our expression of fear as one of wonderment. And people with autism don’t feel the emotions that others do.

Can you hear it? Click, whir, wait, shake - ahhhh! 

Listen Thursday night at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio, Shake it- a modern Polaroid love story.

Taking a Polaroid picture is a totally sensory experience. But it is more than just the sensation of a snapshot; there is something special and social about seeing, giving & receiving that white-framed photo.

America’s finest military bands provide the musical continuity to this one-hour Memorial Day special presented by Bill Burkhardt, of WTIP North Shore Community Radio. Interwoven with narrative history of the holiday, it is a fitting memorial to those who have served and sacrificed. 

Tune if for this special Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio.

As American founding father, and second U.S. President, John Adams noted: "Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives". In honor of this weekend's Memorial Day celebrations, we're traveling the world for musical reflections, tributes and remembrances of those who gave their lives, for their country, and wise words on the importance of such patriotic acts. Beginning in our own United States, we'll be touring Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and beyond, w/ a special tribute to our original celebration of 'Decoration Day' in Civil War days.

Intelligence Squared U.S. brings Oxford-style debating to America -- one motion, one moderator, two informed and provocative panelists for the motion, and two against. John Donvan of ABC News -- Nightline is the official moderator of Intelligence Squared debates. The debate series takes on the hot-button issues of the day to inform, enlighten and entertain.

Join us Thursday night at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio.

In this one-hour special, Radio Ambulante presents the best English-language stories from its first season with reporting from North Carolina, Chile and Mexico.

Tune in for Radio Ambulante, with host Martina Castro, Thursday night May 8, at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio.

Featured stories:

On America’s Test Kitchen, we speak to Cara De Silva, the editor of In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin, a cookbook written by starving women in the Czechoslovakian ghetto/concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Find out how these brave women used their culinary heritage as an act of defiance by talking about food and trading recipes.

Hear the latest radio special in honor of National Poetry Month Thursday, April 24 at 9 p.m. 

In addition to being a public radio host, Al Letson is also a poet, playwright, and actor.

In this hour-long program,  Letson will explore all facets of poetry. Poets from all over the country will speak about the craft, the lifestyle, and the resurgence of poems.

This week on our new investigative journalism show, "Reveal," we learn about the abuse of heroin, immigrant farmworkers, and teen prisoners and animals, including:

- An investigation by WBEZ/Chicago and The Chicago Reader explores the path heroin takes from Ciudad Juarez to Chicago and across the Midwest, where it supplies dealers, addicts and teens.

- A look at the solitary confinement of teens, many of whom are unconvicted, at Rikers Island in NYC.

Reveal is a new investigative program from the The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. In this pilot: an exclusive story about the volume and impact stemming from the VA's over-prescripton of opiates to addicted veterans; the attorney behind many of the worst for-profit charities; bodycams for cops; and how one reporter helped one man prove his brother had been abused at a state mental facility. Hosted by Al Letson from State of the Re:Union and WJCT, Jacksonville.

Reveal airs Thursday, April 10 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio.