WorkshopDoctor Documentation
A reference library for workshop designers. Research-backed guides on active learning, session design, and facilitation — grounded in learning science and tested across every instructional format.
Start here
If this is your first visit, the articles below are the entry points. They introduce the core problems that make most workshops leak learning, and the structural design moves that fix them. Read them in any order.
- The 80/20 Workshop Engagement Ratio — The 80/20 engagement ratio is a principle stating that participants should be actively working with material for approximately 80% of a live session.
- The Forgetting Curve in Workshops — Your workshop isn't failing because participants aren't committed. It's failing because memory decay was never engineered out of the design.
- Warm vs. Cold Information — Why Your Workshops Feel Like Starting From Zero — Why your workshop feels like starting from zero every cohort — and the single highest-leverage design move that fixes it before the live session starts.
How this library is organized
Articles are grouped into five stages along a learning path. Each stage answers a different question a reader might bring to the library.
- Foundations — the “why” content. Problem awareness, worldview-building, and first exposure to the Workshop Doctor argument. The best entry points for new readers.
- Methodology — the blueprint. The 5-phase framework, the 8-step sequence, backward design, and the 1111 framework. For readers who believe the “why” and want the method.
- Tactical — build and production content. Assignments, syllabi, platforms, materials. For readers who have the method and need to execute.
- Activity Bank — the 18-activity reference library from the Active Learning Activities series. Pluggable tactics that don’t require consuming the full methodology first.
- Edge Cases — specialized content. Format selection, expertise gaps, and unusual constraints.
Use the sidebar on the left to navigate between stages, or jump directly to tags, topics, or the glossary. Every article in the library is authored by Jason Wright, PhD; see the methodology page for the full disclosure on how content is produced.