CS Concepts
If you are new to CS education, the jargon, concepts, and standards can be overwhelming. The good news is that many of the concepts will sound familiar to you once you dive in and it is far more important for students to have a positive experience with CS education as opposed to needing to know everything about it. I truly believe CS education is all about experimenting, learning with your students, and having fun!
In Virginia, we have the K-12 CS Standards of Learning. The standards are organized into six strands: Algorithms and Programming, Computing Systems, Cybersecurity, Data and Analysis, Impacts of Computing, and Networks and the Internet. In K-8 these standards are expected to be integrated into instruction across multiple subject areas.
While the CS standards are important markers along the journey toward integrating CS education into your classroom, teachers should not be expected to plop them into their teaching practice wholesale. Instead, I suggest you view the standards as ingredients you can add to a lesson, project, or problem to drive the learning. If you are just starting out, the three strands I suggest prioritizing are Algorithms & Programming, Computing Systems and Data & Analysis.
The way you solve problems with technology.
The interaction between computing devices and humans.
The collection, storage, use, and ethics around digital data.