Numerical Understanding Mentored By Expert Researchers (NUMBERs) workshop

美国的数学成绩差距很大：美国儿童落后于其他表现较好的国家的儿童；低收入家庭的孩子落后于高收入家庭的孩子；即使在成绩最好的学生中，女孩也落后于男孩。这些国家、社会经济和性别差距可能会对成绩较差的学生造成负面的下游后果，例如限制他们可以从事的职业类型。缩小这些差距至关重要，尤其是考虑到美国正寻求在科学、技术和工程等需要很强数学理解能力的领域增加劳动力。因此，发现如何缩小这些差距的解决方案将对公共福利产生广泛而积极的影响。为了找到这些解决方案，组委会的目标是(a)确定最有希望的途径来发展和评估旨在提高数学成绩和缩小数学成绩差距的干预措施的有效性；(b)促进数学认知/教育领域年轻科学家的发展——下一代数学研究人员将负责解决这些问题和其他由数学成绩不佳引起的社会问题。由专家研究人员指导的数字理解（NUMBERS）研讨会旨在促进旨在缩小数学教育差距的高质量研究。为此，这个为期两天的研讨会组委会将提供一个场所，专家，资深科学家可以分享他们对未来研究最有前途的途径的看法，并为渴望进行有影响力的数学研究的年轻科学家（博士后和研究生）提供直接指导和指导。数字研讨会的时间表和议程将实现以下几个目标：(a)建立一个论坛，让研讨会与会者与K-12教育工作者接触，以确定他们在加强数学教育方面最迫切的需求；(b)概述旨在改善数学教育的先前干预措施和指导未来研究的最重要问题；(c)提供最新的关于数学能力的前沿理论的讨论和分析，以促进未来十年理论驱动的研究（理论和应用）；(d)为正在围绕数学奖学金开展研究项目的年轻学者提供专家指导；(e)提供一个思想研讨会，指导高级和初级科学家如何有效地将他们的研究想法转化为可资助的NSF资助；(f)促进研讨会与会者之间的合作。虽然参与人数将限制在50名左右，以确保每个人都能积极参与研讨会的各个方面（并使年轻科学家能够得到资深科学家的个别指导），但研讨会的影响将更加广泛和包容。特别值得一提的是，组委会将总结研讨会的发展和成功（将在数字研讨会网站上发布），最重要的是，在数字研讨会期间举行的所有会议都将被录影，以便与更广泛的研究和教育界分享。该项目由探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）共同资助，该项目旨在通过研究和开发新的创新和方法来加强preK-12科学、技术、工程和数学的教学。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Gaps in math achievement in the United States are numerous: children in the US lag behind children in other higher performing countries; children in low income families lag behind those with higher incomes; and girls lag behind boys even for the highest achieving students. These national, socio-economic, and gender gaps can result in negative downstream outcomes for the lower achieving students, such as limiting the types of careers that they can pursue. Closing these gaps is essential, especially given that the US seeks to increase its workforce in areas that require strong mathematical understanding, such as in science, technology, and engineering. Thus, discovering solutions on how to close these gaps will have a broad and positive impact on the public welfare. Towards discovering these solutions, the organizing committees’ goals are (a) to identify the most promising avenues for developing and evaluating the efficacy of interventions aimed at improving math achievement and closing the math-achievement gaps and (b) to foster the development of younger scientists in the field of math cognition/education – the next generation of math researchers who will be charged to solve these and other societal problems that arise from underachievement in math. The Numerical Understanding Mentored by Expert Researchers (NUMBERS) Workshop will be designed to foster high-quality research aimed at closing the gaps in math education. To do so, the organizing committee of this two-day workshop will provide a venue where expert, senior scientists can share their vision for the most promising avenues for future research and provide direct mentorship and guidance for younger scientists (postdoctoral and graduate students) who aspire to conduct math research that will have an impact. The schedule and agenda for the NUMBERs workshop will achieve several aims: (a) develop a forum to allow workshop attendees to engage K-12 educators to identify their most pressing needs for enhancing math education; (b) provide an overview of prior interventions aimed at improving math education and the most important questions to guide future research; (c) provide up-to-date discussion and analyses of cutting-edge theory of math ability to foster theory-driven research (theoretical and applied) in the next decade; (d) provide expert mentorship to young scholars who are developing their research programs around math scholarship; (e) provide a mind's-on workshop that will guide both senior and junior scientists on how to effectively translate their research ideas into fundable NSF grants; and (f) foster collaborations among workshop attendees. Although participation will be limited to about 50 scientists so as to ensure that everyone can actively engage in all aspects of the workshop (and so that younger scientists can receive individual mentorship from senior scientists), the impact of the workshop will be broader and inclusive. In particular, the organizing committee will summarize the development and success of the workshop (which will be made available on the NUMBERS Workshop website), and, most important, all sessions held during the NUMBERS Workshop will be video-recorded so as to share the talks with the broader research and education community. This project is co-funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12), which seeks to enhance preK-12 teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics through the research and development of new innovations and approaches.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.