Working with Claude & Claude Cowork

Days 1–2 · no prerequisites

With a working mental model in hand, we turn to using Claude and Claude Cowork for everyday research and scientific work.

Core use cases

• Research: gathering, summarizing, and synthesizing large amounts of information quickly.
• Reporting: drafting and refining project reports in collaboration with Claude Cowork.
• Brainstorming: exploring options, framings, and approaches.
• Red-teaming: stress-testing your own ideas, code, and writing.
• Admin: handling the routine tasks that otherwise eat into research time.

Skills and context engineering

• An introduction to skills — reusable, packaged capabilities you can invoke.
• Context-engineering strategies: how to give the model the right information, in the right form, at the right time.
• Practical habits for keeping a long-running collaboration on track.

Maintaining scientific standards

Using these tools well means validating their output. We practice:

• Checking claims against sources rather than trusting fluent prose.
• Keeping a human in the loop where scientific quality matters.
• Recognizing the personal and scientific risks of over-delegating.

Outcomes

You should leave able to generate a project report in collaboration with Claude Cowork, and to use Claude across research, reporting, brainstorming, red-teaming, and admin while keeping quality high.