Essential Questions for Computer Science course

[Wendy Huang]

Hi, I'm planning an Intro to CS course (based on UC-Berkeley CS10 course) and would like to create some compelling essential questions. I was wondering if anyone have any that they've used to help focus and inspire their students. For those who are unfamiliar, essential questions come from the Wiggins/McTighe Understanding by Design framework. EQs are meant to get at the heart of a subject matter, and not have easy/simple answers. The best ones are powerful because they are concise but compelling.

A few that I've come up with so far - open for revision:

• What is a good program? (or algorithm or software)
  
• What problems can computers solve and what problems can't they solve?
  

I would love to come up with a few that gets more at other essential aspects of CS, not just programming.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Wendy

[Wendy Huang]

Here are a few more I just thought of:

• What is a computer? 
  
• What can humans do that computers can't do (yet)? 
  
• What would my life / the world be like without computers? 
  
• Is programming an art or a science? 
  
• Can a program be considered beautiful?