In Semester 1, I chose $20 boss as my innovate-ED course. $20 boss allows us to earn money by selling at an upcoming market. We skills such as creativity and communication. Each group member would each receive $20 and from there we purchase materials. Overall, I think it was an eventful and enjoyable experience. It taught me a lot of things, like staying organised and planning ahead. It ran pretty smoothly and I loved working with my business peers.

I was the CEO of a business I established. My business, ‘Teddy Towels, are towels handmade into cute bears. I chose this idea because I love bears and thought this was a unique product that would work if done well. In my group, I chose Danielle and Autumn as my ’employees’. I helped them and assigned tasks to make sure we were all on track in preparation for the market. They were great listeners and I loved working with them. We had around a term to work on our business and in week 5, we set up in Wanju and sold our products to the community.

ASC Capabilities

In this course, we used the ASC capabilities to make a positive difference.

Leadership – After pitching our product ideas to our facilitator, my idea was chosen and I became the CEO of my company. After choosing my workers, I was the leader of the group. By using leadership, I used my voice to share ideas, ask questions and answer theirs. I also listened to my group mates because I believe listening to other advice or ideas makes the final product better. As a leader, I believe that we need skills like active listening, flexibility, creativity and strategic thinking. These were some skills I tried to use while leading my group. Overall, I think I did well as a leader, I naturally love talking with peers and listening to them.

Organised – This project needed organisation. I think our group did very well in keeping on track. From the start, we created a teams channel and I would post what we needed to do each week as well as a document to store our research in. Because we started out strong in organisation, we maintained it throughout the semester. We always made sure we completed our assigned work and did a backwards plan to ensure we were prepared.

Collaborative – My group worked together very efficiently. We always communicated as well as helped each other whenever we needed. An example of this was when we were choosing our logo and posters, we made a ‘group meeting’ and discussed the best option. Whenever there was an issue, we would always talk it out. We listened and helped each other whenever needed. As the leader, I made sure my team worked collaboratively and we did. I loved working with my group as we bonded together really well.

Improvements

I think I could improve on my flexibility, as a leader I should be able to tackle a few tasks at once. Sometimes I couldn’t complete my tasks in the time I wanted. For example, I was in charge of creating the costs and researching bears. In the end, I needed assistance from my peers as I couldn’t juggle two things at once. As a group, I think we could have improved on checking whether the task was actually completed. In the last weeks leading up to the market, I realised we haven’t done the poster for the market. This may have been caused since I had COVID before the market.

I really liked this innovative experience as it got our minds to be creative and I developed a lot of new skills.