Teacher shortage is exacerbated by the inequities of student teaching, and we really need to start addressing it.

plan lessons and complete certification requirements. I always end up spending the weekend disassociating and "catching up sleep."

The students know what we're doing. They can read the room. Teaching to the test, in math, seems like the fastest way to get students to hate math *and* learning.

I always tell folks that teaching someone math is like telling them how to get from NYC to Chicago. Some kids take the shortest and fastest route and some kids take all the back roads. The kids who take the “back roads” make connections and see things others won’t.

Units, which the students must also pay attention to.

I would hope a student make this misconception, or I would introduce it myself. Then, ask the students to discuss about it, like does 25 + 24 makes sense when you (the students) convert it back to the pictorial representation or what does the 2 represent. Contextualizing this also introduces...

I think the misconception here is thinking each toy piece represents a variable. The "2" represents a group of weapons (say, saber and gun). The distributing action and its result answer how many groups you would need to distribute it across 5 troops of one group and 4 troops of another group.