Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This article introduces the 8-SLDF, "a framework that serves as a comprehensive guide to the systematic development of formal curricula in tertiary education." The primary value is it's placement of the framework in a series of entities ranging from 'philosophy' and 'principles' through to 'models' and 'patterns'. It's all very structured and essentially rule-based, which may explain why frameworks like this are so fragile. Anyhow, the framework itself won't be any surprise to people with learning design experience, though they'd probably be disappointed by the short one-paragraph description of 'learning opportunities' as 'rehearsals for assessment.'.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 22, 2026 10:22 a.m.

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