What is the difference between SoSI courses and other courses?

Social Innovation:

SoSI courses are all based around social innovation. Social innovation – ideas that create systemic change for the public good – is very multifaceted and can’t be completely covered in a single course. SoSI courses instead look at specific skills associated with social innovation – like creativity, resilience, and personal transformation – and examine them within a context, like a community problem, a book, or a common interest.

See some example course plans

Offline learning groups (citizen circles):

Since social innovation skills are better-learned in-person, SoSI courses are formatted slightly differently than other P2PU courses. SoSI courses are organized by citizen circles – small, offline peer groups who meet locally to conduct the courses. These local groups create their own courses and run the courses through P2PU through SoSI. Rather than having other participants from different communities join courses virtually, participants who find SoSI courses they want to participate in are asked to 1) Recruit two local friends to create a local section of the course, 2) Riff on the course activities using the activities list, and 3) take ownership of that section of the course. Course sections are encouraged to collaborate with a virtual component, such as skype discussions, but should not be the main focus of the course.

Citizen Circles Partnership:

Citizen Circles (the organization) helps small learning groups (citizen circles) co-create their own courses for social innovation and measure social innovation skill development. In addition to acting as stewards of SoSI, Citizen Circles provides other extended resources for supporting citizen circles in their course development. These include a google group and a regular community call coordinated through the google group.

Assessment:

SoSI courses include assessments for social innovation skill learning. These assessments are evaluated by working groups within the Citizen Circle network to ensure the assessments adequately measure social innovation skill development. We'll be updating the wiki with approved assessments as course plans are submitted.

Course Plan Submission:

Course plans for SoSI should be submitted to cocreate@citizencircles.com for working group feedback and assessment approval. See Course Submission and Support System for more information.