The SoCIETIE Initiative
Explore the pathways through the course.
Whole map
1 · What we do
2 · Where you start
3 · Choose your pathway
4 · What you hand in
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What we are
SoCIETIE Initiative
Social Change Impact — the ANU elective where you learn by doing something real with people outside the university.
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Your course code
AATD6001
Postgraduate coursework students, applying existing expertise.
Postgraduate coursework students
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Your course code
LAWS4001
Unravelling Complexity. The one code that is graded on the conventional HD/D/CR/P scheme — every AATD code is Course Requirements Satisfied.
ALLB students Taken as an Honours elective
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Your course code
Certificate
Skills for Social Change Certificate — the same KNoTs, without the credit.
No course code No degree space used
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When you study
Semester 1
The full teaching rhythm — a timetabled KNoT schedule with projects alongside it.
A timetabled schedule of KNoTs Supported projects alongside
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When you study
Semester 2
The full teaching rhythm — a timetabled KNoT schedule with projects alongside it.
A timetabled schedule of KNoTs Supported projects alongside
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When you study
Summer
A project-led session. You work at your own pace and pick up KNoTs as Semester 1 starts.
January–March Independent projects Overlaps the Semester 1 KNoTs
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When you study
Autumn
A project-led session running inside Semester 1's KNoT schedule.
April–June Independent projects Overlaps the Semester 1 KNoTs
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When you study
Winter
A project-led session running into Semester 2's KNoT schedule.
July–September Independent projects Overlaps the Semester 2 KNoTs
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When you study
Spring
A project-led session, the last entry point of the year.
October–December Independent projects Overlaps the Semester 2 KNoTs
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Your pathway
Project Pathway
Weight on the project. You go deep with one partner and take the KNoTs that project needs.
80+ hours on the project 5+ KNoTs
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Your pathway
Skills Pathway
Weight on the workshops. You build breadth across the KNoT catalogue and run a smaller project.
40+ hours on the project 10+ KNoTs
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Your pathway
Flexible Pathway
Neither shape fits, so you propose your own balance in the Course Pathway Plan and we agree it with you.
20–100 hours on the project An equivalent balance in KNoTs
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The project you do
Partner Projects
Scoped with an Institute partner and advertised for you to join.
Advertised projects Run with Institute partners
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The project you do
Student Initiatives
Student-led and longer-lived than one enrolment — you join a cycle already running.
Multi-year student-led project cycles
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The project you do
Global Programs
The project happens somewhere else, with partners there.
In-country project-based learning
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The project you do
Living Lab
The campus itself is the testbed — ANU's own operations as the problem.
Ongoing collaborative projects Facilitated during semester
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The project you do
Team Challenges
A fixed problem, a mixed team and a deadline measured in days.
Short sprints on a set problem Against the clock
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The KNoTs you attend
SoCIETIE KNoTs
The core workshops, run by the Institute and timetabled like any class.
A morning or afternoon workshop Timetabled like any class
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The KNoTs you attend
Campus KNoTs
Things already happening on campus that count — capped at one in four, so they supplement the core rather than replace it.
Campus events that align to learning goals Capped at one in four KNoTs
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The KNoTs you attend
Partner KNoTs
Run with the organisations you might end up working alongside.
Delivered in collaboration with partners
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What you hand in
Course Pathway Plan
A hurdle, weighted 0%. You must do it, it carries no marks, and nothing else starts until it is agreed.
Declare and agree your pathway
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What you hand in
Completion Evidence
Your record of the KNoTs you attended and what you took from them.
Show that you completed the plan
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What you hand in
Shareable Artefact
The one that has to leave the building. Any form — written, spoken, built, performed — as long as someone outside can use it.
A critical or creative piece Based around SoCIETIE
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What you hand in
Update your Plan
The same submission again, not a new one. A SoCIETIE Fellow reads it and follows up only if something needs it.
Optional — resubmit whenever your plan changes The Milestone Check-In is the natural point
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What you hand in
Shareable Artefact Plan
What the artefact is, who it is for and what form it takes — early enough that the feedback can still change it.
Optional — scope it before you commit Feedback comes back specific
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What you hand in
Show and Share
A short talk about the artefact, to someone outside your discipline. Bring the thing itself, or a prototype, outline, storyboard or poster.
About sixty seconds, to peers and guests Final, nearly final or a work in progress
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How the course works
1 · What we do
SoCIETIE stands for Social Change, Impact, Engagement, Transformation, Inclusion & Equity. Our curriculum is based around the transdisciplinary skills needed to work effectively in this space through classes and projects. Our learners work collaboratively on a project that creates a difference in their community or the community at large.
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How the course works
2 · Where you start
The SoCIETIE Initiative has multiple on-ramps and off-ramps designed to meet students where and when they need it.
AATD courses are offered during every semester and session at every year level. Sessions are great for doing a deep dive on a project, Semesters are great for developing the skills for social change. These timelines overlap, and learners can lean into this flexibility. AATD courses are ungraded (Course Requirements Satisfied) — they count towards your degree, but do not contribute to your GPA.
LAWS4001 is offered during semester for students in the ALLB. As an Honours-level course, it carries a traditional grade, but the assessment and timelines are the same.
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How the course works
3 · Choose your pathway
Learners choose whether they are going to focus their time on developing skills through the Skills Pathway, or focus on applying their skills through a project on the Project Pathway. This balance helps you to meet the hours required in the course in a flexible way.
Either way, learners balance undertaking a collaborative change project with attending classes, which we call KNoTs, to support their learning.
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How the course works
4 · What you hand in
Learners submit three assessment items — a plan, evidence that work in the plan was done, and then something that can be shared with the broader community.
How we teach
The principles are the reason the course is shaped the way it is. Click twice
to see what we’re assuming and how this works in practice.
Full screen
How we work with learners
Developing learner agency
How we learn together
Cultivating collaboration
Working across difference
The nature of the work
A safe place to take risks
Transparent, outward-facing work
How we connect
Multi-dimensional partnerships
Whole set
How we work with learners
How we learn together
The nature of the work
How we connect
Single click a hex tile to highlight. Click again to see a description. Click off the hex tiles to clear.
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How we work with learners
We meet students where they are at
We're assuming
The right time to take the course differs for every student. Learners arrive with very different change-making experience from different disciplines.
For example
A first-year student may already be leading change, while a final-year student may never have considered it. The course accommodates both rather than assuming a fixed starting point.
By design
Open to every year level through AATD1001, AATD2001 and AATD3001, with LAWS4001 and AATD6001 variants and not-for-credit pathways Offered every session — Semester 1, Semester 2 and intensives
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How we work with learners
We trust students to do their best work
We're assuming
Students with clear intrinsic motivation can be trusted to do great work without the pressure of marks.
For example
In practice, this means we don't police attendance, demand evidence for an extension, or make you earn the benefit of the doubt. We take your word and your work in good faith. We find that trust is almost always repaid.
By design
A self-designed pathway and flexible submission windows — communication matters more than the deadline
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How we work with learners
Students design their own journey
We're assuming
Students learn best when they shape their own path toward their own goals.
For example
Rather than following a fixed syllabus, students plan the KNoTs and project hours that fit their aspirations. Plans are allowed to evolve along the way.
By design
Skills, Project and Flexible pathways The Course Pathway Plan tailors the journey to each student “Plans are made to be broken”
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How we work with learners
Students set their own pace and goals
We're assuming
Students work better toward milestones they set themselves than deadlines imposed on them. Course deadlines exist for coordination, not for learning.
For example
Deadlines in SoCIETIE are coordination points, not tests of compliance — you plan your own milestones around your project and your semester. And when your pace changes, telling us what's going on is a skill we teach, not a failure we punish.
By design
Submission windows rather than hard deadlines Milestones are planned in the Course Pathway Plan, and re-planned as the semester moves
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How we work with learners
We grow learners — we don't judge them
We're assuming
Learning is developmental, and it is best supported by feedback. A single number can't capture the outcomes of transdisciplinary work.
For example
We assess the whole, not the sum: your final grade is not simply one assignment added to the next. Feedback and revision are what develop your thinking.
By design
CRS Completion Grade Qualitative indicators — Complete with/without Revision Completion is holistic, not additive, and resubmission is built in
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How we learn together
We learn in relationship, not in isolation
We're assuming
Knowledge is co-constructed. Ideas matter, and they are valued in relationship with others.
For example
Learning happens with peers, educators and the real world. Ideas are built between people, not handed down or worked out alone.
By design
Interactive KNoT workshops and collaborative projects Peer discussion of plans and artefacts is encouraged
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How we learn together
We celebrate collaboration, not competition
We're assuming
Sharing and celebrating work motivates and validates students in a professional context, rather than scoring and ranking.
For example
The Show and Share celebrates learning rather than staging a contest. Students share their experiences rather than compete for grades.
By design
All projects are collaborative in nature A public-facing Shareable Artefact is the final task
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How we learn together
We work across difference, not just alongside it
We're assuming
Difference is a resource, not an obstacle, when people take the time to understand each other.
For example
We intentionally design environments where people with different points of view, knowledge bases and expertise build genuine understanding of each other. That is different from multidisciplinary co-location, where people are simply put in a room together and left to chance.
By design
KNoTs draw students from across the university into one room Partners bring non-academic expertise into the conversation
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How we learn together
The course has multiple custodians and stakeholders.
We're assuming
Students belong to the whole learning community, not to individual academics.
For example
Teaching is distributed: many experts each contribute their topic and share responsibility for the cohort. No one academic “owns” a class of their students — the tent is wide enough for many voices.
By design
Many experts each contribute to the design and delivery rather than one academic teaching everything Fellows share feedback and support across the whole cohort
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The nature of the work
There are no single right answers
We're assuming
Complex transdisciplinary problems have many valid solutions, so assessing work against a single “correct” answer is invalid.
For example
Wicked problems need multiple perspectives. We assess how you think and work with ideas, not whether you matched an answer key.
By design
A valuation structure built on the “no right answers” philosophy Qualitative descriptors from Satisfactory to Exceptional, based on the SOLO and Bloom taxonomies
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The nature of the work
We learn by doing real work that matters
We're assuming
Applying skills to make real-world impact deepens learning more than any simulated task could.
For example
The Project applies the skills you build in KNoTs to create real impact on campus and in the community.
By design
A required Project with a Partner or Community Typically, 40 to 80-plus hours of project work
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The nature of the work
Risk-taking and “failure” are part of learning
We're assuming
Exploration requires the safety to try uncertain approaches without penalty.
For example
If we scored and ranked your work immediately, it would discourage exploration. We want you to take risks.
By design
Revise-and-resubmit, with no marks during the semester The safe-space principle
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The nature of the work
We make work for real audiences
We're assuming
Work made for a real audience — a partner, the public — calls out more care than work made only for an assessor. And students rise to a clear, high standard when they are supported to reach it.
For example
Project outcomes go to community partners, the Show and Share is open, and work lives on the website beyond the semester. That's why the bar is high: “Course Requirements Satisfied” isn't a pass at 50 per cent — we expect work at Distinction level and above, and we help you get there through feedback, not gatekeeping.
By design
Course Requirements Satisfied is set at Distinction level, with transparent descriptors and verbs from the SOLO and Bloom taxonomies Hurdle tasks, revise-and-resubmit to the standard, and feedback from Fellows Project outcomes are delivered to partners, and work is published on the website
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The nature of the work
Reflection turns experience into learning
We're assuming
Metacognition — thinking about thinking — is where durable learning consolidates.
For example
Reflection draws a thread through the whole course and, at the end, ties the knot. We build it on Kolb's learning cycle: think, do, feel and watch.
By design
Reflection in the KNoT Completion Evidence — 250 to 500 words per KNoT, plus holistic and journey reflections Kolb's cycle frames the reflection A rationale accompanies the Shareable Artefact
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How we connect
We build the skills to make change happen
We're assuming
Making change is a learnable, transferable craft that crosses disciplines — not an innate talent, and not the property of any one field.
For example
Every KNoT names the skills it develops — systems thinking, facilitation, theory of change — and the Project is where you combine them. They go with you into any discipline, workplace or cause.
By design
Every KNoT names the skills it develops, from a shared vocabulary of 29 terms Skills appear on KNoT and class pages, so a pathway can be planned skill-first The Project is where the skills combine
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How we connect
The whole university is a place of learning
We're assuming
Universities serve to make students think. Valuable learning exists everywhere across the university and its partners, not just in one course's classes.
For example
Students carry an all-access pass to the whole university. KNoTs are flexible building blocks that you assemble by interest.
By design
Campus KNoTs alongside SoCIETIE KNoTs — up to one in every four KNoTs can be combined or split Learning from across the whole university counts
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How we connect
We build many-sided partnerships
We're assuming
Partnerships work best when they run in more than one direction; a partner that only receives student work is a client, not a collaborator.
For example
The same partner might teach into a KNoT, host a Project, bring a problem to the Show and Share and hire a graduate — each connection strengthens the others, and the Institute is where they meet.
By design
Partners host Projects, teach into KNoTs and bring real problems The Show and Share puts partners and students in the same room The same organisation can appear in several roles at once
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How we connect
We learn at a human scale
We're assuming
Genuine understanding between educator and student needs small numbers. Scale comes from repeating small formats and offering different pathways, not from letting classes grow.
For example
Classes stay small enough to hear from every student, understand their point of view and get to know them. We scale by multiplying human-scale contexts: many experts each teaching small, rather than one class growing large.
By design
Classes stay small enough to hear from everyone KNoTs are repeated across sessions rather than enlarged Many experts each teach small groups, rather than one class growing large
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A family of principles
How we work with learners
What connects them
Every learner arrives capable, at a different point and with their own reasons for being here. So we meet them where they are, trust them with their own journey, pace and goals, and give feedback that grows them rather than marks that rank them.
The principles
We meet students where they are at We trust students to do their best work Students design their own journey Students set their own pace and goals We grow learners — we don't judge them
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A family of principles
How we learn together
What connects them
Change is made with other people, so learning is too. We learn in relationship, collaborate rather than compete, work across difference rather than around it, and share the course among the many people who teach into it and care about it.
The principles
We learn in relationship, not in isolation We celebrate collaboration, not competition We work across difference, not just alongside it The course has multiple custodians and stakeholders.
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A family of principles
The nature of the work
What connects them
Real problems have no answer sheet. Students take on authentic projects for real audiences, are free to take risks and fall forward, and reflect on what happened so that experience becomes learning.
The principles
There are no single right answers We learn by doing real work that matters Risk-taking and “failure” are part of learning We make work for real audiences Reflection turns experience into learning
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A family of principles
How we connect
What connects them
The course connects outward without losing its human scale. The skills it teaches travel across disciplines, the whole university counts as a place to learn, partners join in more than one role, and we grow by repeating small formats rather than enlarging them.
The principles
We build the skills to make change happen The whole university is a place of learning We build many-sided partnerships We learn at a human scale
Where to go next
Find out who we work with
Discover your next project
Build Skills to support your Project
Presenting this?
The same map and the same eighteen principles are a slide deck at
/societie/introduction/slides/ — four acts,
arrow keys, and every hexagon still turns over.
