Preferred embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods of facilitating and evaluating user thinking about an arbitrary problem. The system includes first logic to facilitate user specification of the problem to populate a problem statement structure; second logic to facilitate user specification of a conclusion, to populate a conclusion statement structure; third logic to facilitate user specification of knowledge, related to at least one of the problem and the conclusion, to populate a knowledge structure. Some embodiments include logic to construct a user model of user development and population of the structure; and visual feedback logic to depict an archetype problem-solution structure and to depict the user model structure. Other embodiments include tracking logic to monitor user interactions and to build a model of such interactions so that the model, and the user thinking process, may be evaluated.