Paul Hewitt's Next Time Questions

Next-Time Questions are favorite insightful questions I have asked my students over my teaching career. I have embellished them with cartoons to catch interest. Their intention is to elicit student thinking. My use of them was posting several in a glass case outside my lecture hall—without answers. The wait-time for answers was one week. I could have called them Next-Week Questions, which would have been more appropriate.

Most of these have been published over the years as Figuring Physics in The Physics Teacher magazine. They have also been in ancillaries to my Conceptual Physics textbooks, and physical science textbooks as well. My hope is that teachers will pose the questions, and withhold answers to “next time,” which could be as early as the next class meeting. Their educational value is the long wait time!