"Not My Subject"?: A Survey of Teachers Regarding the Implementation of New K-8 Computing Education Standards

Around the United States, educators are teaching new computer science (CS) education standards, including in Tennessee, which announced its first K-8 CS standards in 2018. In Tennessee, the standards are now the official guidelines for CS education at the K-8 level, what barriers prevent CS teaching and learning to become a reality, especially for elementary and middle grades teachers, are unknown. We developed and administered a needs survey for K-8 teachers regarding CS education as a part of a broader community-engaged project. From 251 K-8 teachers' responses, we found that CS is important to them, but there are barriers to meeting the standards. Qualitative items about needs and barriers related to CS education teachers revealed a demand for professional development and training opportunities for teachers to learn about both the technical aspects of computing education and embedding computing ideas across the K-8 curriculum. We will discuss the implications of these findings and will describe how these results will enable our efforts to provide professional learning opportunities for educators.