Distance learning in support of social entrepreneurship: the russian experience (case-study)

The Foundation called "Our future" in 2014 created the "Laboratory of social entrepreneurship", whose activities are aimed at the development and implementation of distance learning programs focused on the needs of social business. The main educational program of the Laboratory - "Fundamentals of social entrepreneurship" is implemented in a remote form, which allows to provide a wide geographical coverage of the audience of interested students from different regions of the Russia. General characteristics of the learning process: forms, methods, technologies: Seminars using distance learning technology video. Self-development of recommended materials by students. Independent work of students to develop their own project of social enterprise, discussion of the results of independent work in the online group and with the teacher in the process of group chat. Creation of a regional database of existing social enterprises by students. In addition to the main distance learning course, the Laboratory offers a wide range of webinars ("Mom's business: launching an educational project", "Social business Marketing", "Waste Economics: how to make money on garbage", etc.). Some online seminars of the Laboratory are held in the form of master classes of successfid social entrepreneurs, who share their experience and answer questions from the audience. The practice of conducting online courses for social entrepreneurs has shown that distance learning effectively copes with the task of transferring specific practical tools to students, and the format of individual online consultations allows for detailed study of projects and its individual characteristics.