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ThinkQuiry Poster Series: Asking Metacognitive Questions

Picture of Derek Cabrera, PhD   Derek Cabrera, PhD  ·  1 minute read

These four beautiful DSRP posters, or all 4 together, can be found here. Enjoy!

"We wanted to get people asking different kinds of questions. Questions that lead to new insights and answers but also more questions. Structural questions that can be mixed and matched to form even more complex questions that get at the essence of the wicked problems and complex systems around us."

These posters were designed to captivate and engage. To get the viewer to ask questions and to find not only multiple answers but many more questions, rather than to seek a single answer. These posters are based on the idea of "ThinkQuiry"--asking a different kind of question than the tradition 5W (Who, What, Where, When, Why). Instead we are asking "structural questions". We call them structural questions because they are questions that are based on cognitive structures that the mind uses to convert meaningless information into meaningful mental models. These metacognitive structures are called DSRP which stands for Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives.[1] DSRP are universal patterns of thought--a cognitive code.

You can practice ThinkQuiry Questions below by clicking on this icon:thinkquery Then type in any content (one or two words or phrases). You'll see some questions auto-fill with the terms you enter. Click on any question to see it visually mapped. Zoom in to see the structure of the questions.

  1. Cabrera. 2015 Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems. Odyssean. ↩︎