Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
George Siemens weighs in with another significant paper. Starting with the premise, established elsewhere, that "learning today has moved beyond courses," he outlines a model of four distinct learning domains: accretion, transmission, acquisition and emergence. Each demands a different sort of learning (not 'instructional design') and Siemens accordingly offers a learning development cycle that takes this into account. I'm not so sure I'm happy with the taxonomy of learning domains - associating cognitivism and constructivism with emergence is, in most respects, not how I would organize learning. But this is a very minor criticism of what is overall a stimulating and well-considered paper, one that will take its place as part of the foundational literature for a new theory of learning.

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

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Last Updated: Aug 28, 2025 8:03 p.m.

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