Research is a collaborative endeavor, and humans learn best from other humans. Zaposa’s workshops, masterclasses, and colloquia range from broad departmental talks to intensive deep-dives designed to build self-efficacy, methodological rigor, and project clarity.
These workshops draw on two decades of workshop leadership, including the PEER Institute model serving 1,000+ researchers globally, experience as a former NSF Program Director overseeing a $65M portfolio, and Research: A Practical Handbook.
Each workshop is interactive, dynamic, and participant-centered. Be prepared to work on your project.
Workshop Topics Catalog
PI Professional Development & Research Capacity
Designed for emerging DBER/SoTL scholars, faculty pivoting into education research, and graduate student cohorts who need structured guidance to build core research self-efficacy, navigate study design, and translate classroom ideas into rigorous, publishable scholarship.
| Getting started with SoTL research design |
How do you know if your students are learning? What changes are you contemplating for next year? In this workshop, we’ll clarify your ideas about teaching problems to solve or new things to try. Your ideas will form the nucleus of a new SoTL project. You will leave this workshop with a reasonable and possible research question, as well as initial ideas towards a research design. |
| Research Ethics & Human Subjects (IRB) |
Faculty often make changes in their teaching to improve student understanding and engagement. To assess these changes – either at the course level or the departmental level – requires careful measurements. In this interactive workshop, I discuss some of the challenges with collecting, analyzing, and presenting student data from the perspective of the care of human subjects. We discuss how to choose appropriate measurements, what do to if you have historical data, and how to plan for the future. I will walk you through privacy concerns for work with human subjects, including applying for approval from the human subjects protection board (IRB). This is an introductory level workshop for people just getting started with the scholarship of teaching and learning. |
| Sharpening your “researcher eyes” with classroom observations |
New researchers often struggle to make careful observations of student interactions, translate those observations into research questions, and then refine their research questions through close analysis of video-based data. In this workshop, we practice looking for subtlety in classroom video and building viable research projects within the constraints of classroom observations. This workshop is for people who are experienced in the classroom and new to video-based research. |
| Getting started in interview-based research |
Interviews are a powerful way to learn from and with other people, and it turns out they’re also great for research. If you’re thinking about a research project that collects or analyzes interview data, this workshop will get you started. We’ll cover finding your interview voice, developing an initial protocol, and powerful phrases during an interview. We’ll practice analyzing real interview data, and discuss practical data collection and management techniques. |
| Common data types in education research |
New education researchers are often curious about how much data they need, or whether their small classes are big enough to collect enough data. This workshop outlines common data types and quantities in education research, and how to match your data types to your research questions. |
Project Development & Grant Strategy
Designed for individual PIs, multi-investigator research teams, and institutional grant incubators who need insider strategies to align ambitious project visions directly with federal sponsor priorities and submit highly competitive proposals.
| Compelling NSF Education proposals |
In this introductory workshop about the NSF and the proposal process, I’ll walk you through the basics of what goes into a compelling education proposal or education component of a CAREER proposal. We’ll talk about your proposal narrative, budget and justification, mentoring plan, and other documents. You’ll get the most out of this workshop if you have a broad idea about what kind of project you’d like to do as well as a guess as to which NSF program you’d like to apply to. |
| Grant Writing & Proposal Preparation |
Writing a competitive grant proposal requires translating your research passion into the specific language and priorities of funding agencies. In this structured, hands-on workshop, we cover proposal architecture, budget alignment, narrative pacing, and multi-author team logistics. Led by a former NSF Program Director, you will learn how to unpack reviewer expectations, construct a compelling project story, and ensure all supplementary documents seamlessly reinforce your core narrative. |
| Strategic Resets & Project Pivots |
When projects stall, lose momentum, or are passed on to new hands, you have a golden opportunity for a fresh strategic perspective. This welcoming, collaborative workshop is designed to help teams and incoming staff evaluate existing project architectures with confidence and clarity. We walk through practical sense-making tools to help you untangle inherited work, re-align core research questions, and adapt ongoing initiatives into exciting new funding opportunities or institutional goals. |
Evaluation & Capacity
Designed for department chairs, center directors, project leads, and incoming staff who need practical frameworks to build internal evaluation systems, establish high-signal feedback loops, and create executable strategic plans.
| Evaluation Plans That Drive Decisions |
Evaluation is how you know if you are meeting your goals and serving human needs. All projects, even research projects, are better with explicit and varied evaluation. In this workshop, we’ll practice choosing different kinds of evaluation for your projects, and work on the best ways to learn what you need to proceed. |
| Strategic Plans that Actually work |
Too many strategic plans end up as expensive shelfware: ambitious document exercises that fail to change how an organization or project actually operates day-to-day. Strategic planning in higher education and research should be an ongoing, executable engine that aligns your team, clarifies priorities, and drives real outcomes. In this hands-on workshop, we unpack the mechanics of turning high-level goals into flexible, cost- and time-efficient work plans. We’ll cover practical frameworks for establishing actionable metrics, designing feedback loops that catch stalled initiatives early, and building operational systems that support continuous improvement without overwhelming your team’s capacity. |
Research Communication & Collaboration
Designed for researchers across all career stages and disciplines – from graduate students to interdisciplinary team leads – who need actionable tools to encapsulate their work, present complex science clearly, and manage collaborative team dynamics.
| Making beautiful posters |
Let’s be honest: there are a lot of really ugly posters out there, and scientists aren’t trained on how to beautifully present their work. In this hands-on, practical workshop, we focus on making your posters better: more readable, more clear, more memorable, and more accessible. You should bring an abstract for a poster you plan to present or a draft poster that needs help. This workshop is primarily aimed at graduate students, but undergrads and postdocs are also welcome. |
| Elevator pitches |
You’re in an elevator a conference and potential collaborator asks about your research. You run into your dean in the hallway and they ask what you’re working on. You need to solicit new participants into your research study. What do you say? Let’s work on encapsulating your projects, communicating with non-researchers, and asking for what you need. This workshop is best if you’ve already got a clear project in mind, whether it’s new or nearly complete. |
| Authorship conversations |
How do you navigate authorship conversations with your collaborators and students? Understanding authorship and giving proper credit are essential skills for any researcher. This workshop will help you tackle the complexities of authorship in collaborative research. Learn strategies for clear and productive conversations about authorship, author order, and credit for work. This workshop is appropriate for junior researchers, new research mentors, or anyone working in interdisciplinary or translational fields. |
Improving Teaching & Evidence-Based Pedagogy
Designed for faculty, course coordinators, department committees, and Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) seeking evidence-based strategies to improve student retention, establish equitable classroom environments, and adopt modern, AI-resistant assessment methods.
| Academic integrity in the age of AI |
Generative AI (AI) opens thorny issues for students and faculty grappling with academic integrity (AI). How can faculty promote student learning when generative AI makes it easy to shortcut? Let’s talk through some use cases from an academic integrity perspective. I’ll address common sources of confusion for students as well as practical methods to reduce cheating and promote learning. |
| Fostering inclusivity and equity in the classroom |
What classroom practices support everyone in the classroom? How can we tell when a learning environment is equitable? How can we adjust our policies and teaching methods to better support diverse learners? In this workshop, we blend results from education research with practice: active listening, equitable policies, having difficult conversations with students, and supporting diverse learners. This workshop is aimed at faculty and classroom instructors. |
| Oral Exams |
Oral exams are a student-centered and faculty-friendly way to assess your students’ learning and mastery of course topics. They work well across the whole curriculum, from intro classes of diverse learners to senior seminars, and from language classes to STEM theory and labs. As a bonus, they’re AI-proof and super fast to grade. However, faculty are often apprehensive about how to implement oral exams in their classes. In this workshop, we’ll talk about the impetus and practicalities of oral exams, and help you reimagine one of your existing exams as an oral. |
Talks and colloquiua
Looking for something a little more conventional? These topics are more appropriate for a colloquium or invited lecture: 50 minutes of slide-based entertainment, aimed at faculty and students in the department or college.
Broad academic audiences
These talks are appropriate for STEM-wide events at colleges and universities.
| Clarity, Coherence, and Compliance |
What makes grant proposals successful? I’ve read hundreds of grant proposals, and there are strong themes that separate funded ones from the rest. Clarity: what do you want to do? how? why? Coherence: how does your project hang together intellectually and logistically? Compliance: does your project adhere to the ideas and rules in the solicitation? This talk is focused on education research projects at the NSF, but it’s appropriate for new PIs in any field. |
| Who can do this? Discrimination in professional science |
From overt sexism to more mundane structural discrimination, women in science face many challenges; these challenges compound intersectionally for women with multiple historically excluded identities. In this talk, I’ll briefly go over the state of sexist and racist discrimination and harassment in science. I will outline some things we can do as individuals and collectively to combat pervasive sexism and racism. |
| Faculty want to teach better, but how? |
If we want to transform instruction to support student learners in physics, we need to enable faculty and institutions to enact the transformations that will best support students in their contexts. Part of this work is educational: helping physicists know what’s available. Part of it is community-centered: supporting physicists to engage meaningfully together as educators. My favorite part is aspirational: co-thinking to articulate a new dream and how to enact it. This talk focuses on programs and resources to support emerging research institutions, emerging education researchers, and STEM faculty in transforming their teaching and supporting their students. |
Colloquia for physics departments
These topics are appropriate for a physics colloquium or invited speaker series; they also do well in allied fields.
| Helping students learn more |
How do students learn, and how can we help? This is a great introduction to key results from education research around student learning. It’s best for STEM audiences or physics department colloquia which occasionally bring in scientists from other disciplines. |
| Physics learning at large and small scales |
How do we know how people learn physics? This is a fundamental question of measurement which requires both large-scale quantitative and small-scale qualitative studies to build a full picture of student learning in physics. In this talk, I discuss efforts to measure student learning using quantitive and qualitative data of physics students across the undergraduate curriculum and across institutions. |
| Consequences of asset-based models for physics education |
Historically, physics education research (PER) has used deficit models for students, focusing on how students don’t understand diverse topics in physics and developing instructional tools to fix students’ difficulties. In contrast, an asset-based model of students focuses on how students put together different ideas to solve problems, accounting for both processes of problem solving and deeper structure to students’ thinking. This talk takes up the consequences (both instructional and in research) for an asset-based view of students, and applies them to faculty development models as well. |
Workshop Logistics
How Much Time?
Most of these workshops are naturally about two hours, though some of them squeeze to about one hour. Colloquia and research talks are typically 50–60 minutes. If you’re looking to build a day-long workshop, you’re looking at about 3 topics from this list. A masterclass for a smaller group might look like a deep dive into 1–2 topics.
Want more time? Consider a workshop series or PEER field school.
How Many People Can Come to My Workshop?
Your group can be as small as 4–6 people or as large as a full auditorium. Generally, though, the “sweet spot” for workshops is 15–40 people, masterclasses are great for up to about 6–8, and colloquia can be whatever you want. You could be all emerging education researchers or a mix of brand-new and experienced people. You could be all faculty, all students & postdocs, or a mix of researchers from all career stages. You could be all in one department, a mix of STEM departments, or from across your whole university or geographic region. Tell me who you are and what you need, and I’ll write a workshop or talk that fits your needs.
Lead Times & Scheduling
I love to travel for in-person events. Generally, half-day or full-day workshops require 1–2 months of lead time, while a long weekend or a full-week field school requires 3–5 months. Virtual workshops and series offer different flexibility. The earlier you reach out, the more scheduling options we have.
If you have a tight timeline, reach out anyway. I love to daisy-chain events in neighboring locations and fill unexpected gaps on the calendar.
You’ve Got Me
When you hire me for an in-person workshop or colloquium, you get my full engagement for the day of the visit.
I am happy to spend the rest of the day meeting 1:1 for design consults with your participants, chatting with your Dean or Provost about the strategic value of education research, or meeting with student and campus groups (such as Women in STEM) to discuss academic career paths. Need extra time? Maybe we can add an additional day, calendar permitting.
Ready to Work Together?
Whether you need a 1:1 mentor for your research pivot, training and masterclasses for your group, a thought partner to build an awesome project, or a tailored evaluation plan that actually serves your project, let’s talk.
Zaposa services & strategic support
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