[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# DSRP, patterns of thinking

## Details

**Authors** Segers, Rob

**Year** 2014

**Publisher** Rob Segers (robsegers.blogspot.com)

**Kind of work** blog

**Discipline** Education

**Kind of engagement** public

**Applied** false

[Read it](https://robsegers.blogspot.com/2014/10/dsrp.html)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

The post sets out to identify what underlies the thinking skills commonly grouped as twenty-first-century skills, and presents DSRP as the set of four patterns beneath them.

### How they did it (methods)

A short exposition. It first lists six thinking skills — critical, creative, systems, scientific, interdisciplinary, and prosocial or emotional thinking — then introduces DSRP as the four patterns underlying all of them, attributing the theory to Derek Cabrera. Each pattern is given a description and a set of guiding questions, with distinctions carried by the paired questions of what something is and what it is not. The post closes with three rules: that each structure implies the other three, that each structure implies its two elements, and that each element implies its opposite.

### What they found (results)

The post concludes that thinking improves when a person applies the four patterns explicitly rather than incidentally, and describes DSRP as a method with tools and techniques usable in real settings, education among them.

## Commentary

### In short

A blog post presenting DSRP as the four patterns beneath the familiar list of twenty-first-century thinking skills, with guiding questions for each pattern and the co-implication rules stated.

### In more detail

Segers approaches DSRP from the direction of skills rather than theory. He begins with the six thinking skills schools were being asked to teach in 2014 — critical, creative, systems, scientific, interdisciplinary, and prosocial or emotional thinking — and argues that these are not six separate competencies to be taught separately but surface expressions of four underlying patterns. DSRP is then introduced, credited to Derek Cabrera, as those four patterns. Each pattern gets a description and guiding questions a thinker can ask. Distinctions are handled through the pair of questions asking what something is and what it is not, which carries the identity-other structure without the post needing to name it as such. The post then states three rules explicitly: each of the four structures implies the other three, each structure implies its own two elements, and each element implies its opposite. Those are the co-implication claims, stated correctly, and their presence is what separates this post from the many short treatments that stop at four labels. The post's practical claim is modest and specific: that the patterns operate anyway, and that the gain comes from using them deliberately. It describes DSRP as having tools and techniques for real settings and names education as one.

### Response

The post is accurate on the two points most often garbled in short treatments. It states the co-implication rules — each structure implying the other three, each structure implying its elements, each element implying its opposite — rather than presenting four independent categories, and it treats the patterns as operating beneath the named thinking skills rather than as a fifth skill alongside them. That second move is the right reading: DSRP does not propose another competency to add to a list but accounts for what the items on such lists have in common.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

**Added** 2026-10-26

**How to cite this** Segers, Rob (2014). DSRP, patterns of thinking. Rob Segers (robsegers.blogspot.com).