I use Moodle for a lot of 'courses' where the 'teacher' role is really a moderator role. They don't actually prepare lessons and courseware, but rather steer the discussions and collaborative work towards a desired goal. Each instance of a course template can take vastly different directions, depending on where the participants drive it, but always results in a constructive lesson.
I don't find a forum quite the right entry point for this, so I haven't used the social format. Likewise, I find the columnar look of the topic and weekly formats to rigid.
I've been tinkering with a new format,based on the social format, that uses a wiki as its entry to the course. This page can be managed easily by the moderator, and more pages can be added as needed. Using the various activity and resource filters, links can be created to course activities simply by typing their names. The whole course could be managed easily by a non-editing teacher.
I'm thinking of providing a way (although I haven't figured out how yet) of allowing a particular wiki page to be selected as the default course page. This could be changed as necessary (one per week?).
The moderator could also highlight particularly interesting submissions by the students (at least if they were other wiki solutions) by entering the page name on this page.
Does this make sense to pursue, or am I reinventing a wheel that I can't see?
mike