Derek Cabrera

Cabrera received a Ph.D. from Cornell University with a dissertation entitled Systems Thinking, a synthesis of his research in complexity science and cognition. Cabrera focused his work on the importance of the intersection of ontology and epistemology in understanding human thought and our interactions with the world around us.

Trained as an evolutionary epistemologist, Cabrera says that knowing how we know things is equally important to what we know, and that humans build knowledge not by merely receiving information but through the interactive, dynamic relationship between information and thinking, which he terms DSRP. His book Thinking at Every Desk expounds upon these ideas in the field of education and was republished by W. W. Norton & Company. His self-published book Systems Thinking Made Simple explains the patterns of DSRP and VMCL for a general audience and is used as a textbook at Cornell University and West Point Military Academy's Systems Engineering Department.

Cabrera serves on the faculty at Cornell, where he designed and teaches a graduate-level courses on systems thinking. He received a post-doctoral fellowship at Cornell where he was awarded a large-scale NSF grant to apply his DSRP theory to the evaluation of large-scale science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs. Cabrera's seminal work in the field of systems evaluation led to the development of "netway" models ("networked pathways"). Cabrera's systems and netway models form the theoretical basis of Cornell's Office for Research and Evaluation.

He has received several awards and competitive fellowships for his work, including a National Science Foundation IGERT fellowship in nonlinear systems in the Center for Applied Mathematics and the Department of Theoretical & Applied Mechanics at Cornell University and the Association of American Colleges and Universities K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. He was profiled in a chapter of the book Heroes of Giftedness.

He was a research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, where he further developed the mathematical basis for DSRP theory, led a team to create multimedia modules about complexity science and Network theory and also developed a new model that applied systems thinking to the field of evaluation of science programs.

A social entrepreneur, Cabrera established several non-profit and cause-based organizations, including leading fundraising for the Aceh Relief Fund after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. He co-founded an organization called Children of Rural Africa, which builds schools and community development projects in rural Nigeria.

In 2007, concerned about his experiences teaching ivy league students who were not prepared in terms of thinking skills and abilities, Cabrera and his academic colleague Laura Colosi, also a Ph.D. and Cornell faculty, founded a movement to advance research, innovation, and public understanding of systems thinking and metacognition. Much of their early work focused in the area of education and was based on getting thinking into instruction. They created this movement to ensure that thinking skills were taught to every student nationwide and eventually worldwide. Since its founding, numerous offshoots have been created internationally, in South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Cabrera works with educators from K-12 to college and even with organizations to infuse thinking skills into existing curricula using the Patterns of Thinking method (also known as DSRP), which Cabrera created. In the DSRP method, students are encouraged to explore any given concept by recognizing and explicating the distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives that characterize the concept. They then physically model the concept using a tactile manipulative Cabrera invented called ThinkBlocks, or graphically represent the concept in terms of DSRP using DSRP diagrams.

Cabrera pioneered the theory of DSRP, which states that distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives are foundational patterns to all human thought (cognition). D, S, R, and P are implicit in all thinking and Cabrera believes that people can improve their thinking skills by learning to explicitly recognize and explicate (e.g., metacognition) the distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives underlying anything they wish to understand more deeply or with greater clarity. Through his work at Cornell University and Cabrera Research Lab, Cabrera has applied DSRP to various fields, including: education, evaluation, organizational design, leadership and management, STEM, water science, public policy, leadership and management, psychology, pedagogy and andragogy, and network theory. He frequently speaks at professional conferences and is a leader in efforts to reform the United States' educational system.

In 2008, a special section of the journal Evaluation and Program Planning was dedicated to examining the DSRP theory and method.

On December 13, 2011, Cabrera was awarded a U.S. patent for "a method of teaching thinking skills and knowledge acquisition" - the Patterns of Thinking, or DSRP method.

On October 26, 2011, Cabrera gave a TEDx talk titled "How Thinking Works." The talk focused on American students' lack of thinking skills, and how students at all levels of education can benefit from learning how they think – in terms of distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives. He gave another TEDx talk in 2012 titled "A Big Toe" (Theory of Everything) which further elaborates on the details and dynamics of DSRP.

In July 2014, Cabrera gave the plenary address for the 58th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences at the School of Business at George Washington University, Washington DC. In July 2014, Cabrera gave the keynote address, with Sir Ken Robinson, at the E3 Conference honoring Cabrera's work in education.

Books

• Cabrera, D. and Cabrera, L. (2015) Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems. Ithaca, NY: Odyssean Press. ISBN 978-0996349307
• Cabrera, D. and Colosi, L. (2012) Thinking at Every Desk: Four Simple Skills to Transform Your Classroom. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393707564
• Cabrera, D. (2009) Systems Thinking: Four Universal Patterns of Thinking. VDM Verlag. ISBN 978-3639156737
• Cabrera, D. (2001) Remedial Genius: Thinking and Learning Using the Patterns of Knowledge. Loveland, CO: Project N Press. ISBN 978-0970804501

Articles

• Cabrera, D. and Colosi, L. (2010) The world at our fingertips: the connection between touch and learning. Scientific American Mind, 21, 36-41. doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind0910-36
• Cabrera, D., Mandel, J., Andras, J., et al. (2008) What is the crisis? Defining and prioritizing the world's most pressing problems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6 (9), 469-475. doi:10.1890/070185
• Cabrera, D., Colosi, L., & Lobdell, C. (2008) Systems thinking. Evaluation and Program Planning, 31(3), 299-310. doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2007.12.001
• Cabrera, D. and Colosi, L. (2008) Distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives (DSRP): a theory of thinking and of things. Evaluation and Program Planning, 31(3), 311-317. doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2008.04.001
• Trochim, W., Cabrera, D., Milstein, B., Gallagher, R. S., & Leischow, S. J. (2006) Practical challenges of systems thinking and modeling in public health. American Journal of Public Health 96, no. 3 (2006), 538-546. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.066001

Video series

• Cabrera, D., & Arnold, L. (2007) Lessons in Network Theory. Santa Fe Institute Curricula in Complexity.