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Undergraduate physics and astronomy students are expected to engage with scientific literature as they begin their research careers, yet reading comprehension skills are rarely explicitly taught in major courses. We seek to determine the efficacy of a reading assignment designed to improve undergraduate astronomy (or related) majors’ perceived ability to engage with research literature by using accessible summaries of current research written by experts in the field. During the 2022–2023 academic year, faculty members from six institutions incorporated reading assignments using accessible summaries from Astrobites into their undergraduate astronomy major courses, surveyed their students before and after the activities, and participated in follow-up interviews with our research team. Quantitative and qualitative survey data from 52 students show that students’ perceptions of their abilities to understand jargon and identify the main takeaways of a paper significantly improved with the use of the tested assignment template. Additionally, students reported increased confidence in their abilities within astronomy after exposure to these assignments, and instructors having valued a ready-to-use resource for incorporating reading comprehension into their pedagogy. This exploratory case study, using Astrobites-based assignments, suggests that incorporating current research into the undergraduate classroom through accessible literature summaries may increase students’ confidence and ability to engage with research literature, thereby assisting in their preparation for participation in research careers. 

To broaden indigenous students' participation in Computer Science (CS) education, we conducted a research practitioner partnership (RPP) project, where teachers were taught the CS principles lessons offered by Code.org and asked to integrate mobile application development within their current courses. Additionally, modules and guidance were provided on culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), and an in-classroom implementation of a five-day lesson plan was co-created via a participatory approach. In this experience report, we describe the RPP organization and early findings from our collected teachers' pre/post survey, lesson plans, projects, and students' pre/post survey. The positive outcomes from our RPP project provided valuable teacher learning experiences and actionable, culturally responsive computing lesson plans for the indigenous community. 

BRICKxAR (Multi 3D Models/M3D) prototype offers markerless, in-situ, and step-by-step, highly accurate Augmented Reality (AR) assembly instructions for large or small part assembly. The prototype employs multiple assembly phases of deep learning-trained 3D model-based AR registration coupled with a step count. This ensures object recognition and tracking persist while the model updates at each step, even if a part's location is not visible to the AR camera. The use of phases simplifies the complex assembly instructions. The testing and heuristic evaluation findings indicate that BRICKxAR (M3D) provides robust instructions for assembly, promising potential applicability at different scales and scenarios. 

As the push to increase computer science (CS) education access for all students in the U.S. grows across states and regions, schools that work with traditionally underserved populations such as Native Americans (NA) have a particular challenge in navigating this new landscape for educational systems. Most curriculum in CS can be hard to implement in schools that have not yet developed the capacity of their staff to teach CS due to the rigid sequence of topics and skills. One approach to expanding CS into these settings is to work with content area teachers to develop mobile apps that not only relate to their content but can also expose students to CS skills. The NSF-funded project Let’s Talk Code recognizes the unique opportunities for Native American-serving schools and has developed an approach that could have broad appeal for secondary schools that do not have well-developed CS programs but want to increase access to CS for their students through an integrated approach that can also connect to sustaining language and culture.