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

# Teaching Distinctions

van Dongen, 2025, 21st Century Economics — Education

Patterns: [Distinctions](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/distinctions)

## In short

Van Dongen develops a classroom approach for teaching the DSRP Distinction pattern, including identity/other reasoning, comparison, mental-model revision, and examples from economics.

## What they found (results)

The piece supplies sixteen textbook phrases that signal a conceptual boundary along with prompts to match, and argues the rule belongs woven through the curriculum rather than taught as its own unit.

## What they set out to do (purpose)

A classroom-methods post on teaching the Distinctions rule: introduce it through a short film, have learners practice naming what a thing is and is not, then apply it to new concepts.

These researchers were not testing DSRP. The finding is theirs; the correspondence to DSRP is drawn by this site.

[Source](https://www.21steconomics.org/teaching-distinctions/)