Turning Decades of Media Sales Leadership into Teachable Moments...
A Reflection on developing a practical curriculum for today’s media professionals
PIDP 3210 - Curriculum Development
Assignment #1 - Reflective Writing Part 2
For : Christopher Carroll, Vancouver Community College
Submitted by : Deepa Bhatia Dhingra I Student ID : 000507596
Date : January 22, 2025
With 57 years of age behind me and 37 years of solid media sales experience...
From grinding it out on the front lines to closing sales deals…
From leading sales teams in multiple national and international media houses in India, to moving into CXO role….
To stepping into Vancouver 2.5 years ago and then jumping into PIDP course one year
ago …
And now to developing complete curriculum for TV advertising sales course..
The journey has been filled with a hell of a unlearning and learning.
Here’s an honest reflection within ORID framework on the journey of translating my own sales experience to mapping the DACUM chart, creating a 10 weekend curriculum and then a lesson plan with discussions, role plays, reflection exercises and much more – a very grounding and humbling learning ground for me personally.
Objective : What is this about? What happened?
I drew on my (close to) 4 decades of extensive and hands-on media sales experience - from front end sales and deal making, customizing proposals for clients across various industries, leading sales teams in high pressure Indian media market, navigating ratings, programming, client relationships and the client spend shifts to digital and OTT, to now creating the DACUM. I facilitated sessions to identify skills, knowledge, duties, trends for TV ad sales professional today who are struggling in the digital first world. From there I build the 30-hour, 10 weekend programs with clear goals and objectives, practical assessments, ethical sales and reflections, all to ensure the learners find practical value in the program which they could transfer in their workplace and succeed. I articulated detailed lesson plans, incorporating multi-platform realities and aligned everything with adult education principles of PIDP. This was all done while managing my India office working till post-midnight, other personal commitments, career shift pressures and self-doubt pangs and adjusting to the Canadian way of life J
Reflective : How did it feel and what did it stir ?
It was a mix of highs and lows. The real highs came while drafting the lesson of handling client objections, reliving my actual client interactions with some good and some not so good/difficult and demanding clients. Highs also came while drafting the DACUM which mirrored my media sales leadership journey, leading teams of adult professionals who were with diverse backgrounds and needs.
With the highs came the lows too with self-doubt – moments of “Who would I teach all this now at 57 in a new country?”. 37 years of real experience vs is this career shift meaningful and am I worthy and capable of it in a new professional educational system. Country moving/ relocation burnout also played a part - everything feels harder when you have to rebuild identity and networks. But being a born optimist and a fighter, I brushed aside these clouds of self-doubt with pride that I could convert my extensive experience of
real-world sales with wins and losses, into something teachable for the next gen sales warriors.
Interpretive : What does it mean to you? What insights did you get ? How has your thinking changed by reflecting on this?
The whole process affirmed how much my career had prepared me for, without ever releasing it. Preparing DACUM method gave me a clear roadmap and structure what I have known for years, that is, the experts doing any job/s are the best ones to define it for they understand the best - the real tasks, tools, challenges, risks etc. Through my experience, I have built an intuitive understanding of what makes a great TV ad sales professional, and I transferred the same in preparing the DACUM, the 10 week program and the lesson plan.
This echoes Norton and Moser’s handbook on using it for precise industry validated curriculum (Norton and Moser 2008). The handbook basically backs up gut level expertise into structured, trustworthy training materials.
Building active and hands-on sessions of role plays, client needs analysis aligns completely with Knowles’ andragogy that adults learn best when its relevant, experience based and problem centered (Knowles et al., 2015). - I call it REP.
Developing the lesson plan also deepened my understanding of alignment between objectives, activities, and assessment - a core principle of effective curriculum design (Biggs & Tang, 2011).
The reflection pieces in Lesson Plan are built around David Kolb’s experience learning cycle which says real learning starts with a concrete experience, then moves to reflective observation (Kolb, 1984). This exercise of reflection, pausing, rebuilding and growing help learners improve with clear next steps, making it a practical and powerful tool.
My final interpretation is that building a curriculum was not just a task/ assignment at hand but at its core is leadership in different form – it moves from directing teams to now facilitating growth.
Decisional : How can this new or enhanced interpretation be applied to do things differently?
I will ensure reflection writing in ORID format after each of my instructional course to document what worked and what didn’t and improvisation scope for the learners so that I can evolve in my teaching naturally and design instruction with greater intentionality, empathy and alignment. In fact, writing this reflection allowed me to examine my own transition, from industry leader to instructor - and recognize learning as a transformative process shaped by experience, context, and reflection (Mezirow, 2000).
I will continue to use DACUM to make learning observable and assessable. I will ensure using my real life sales experiences (the difficult client negotiations, the mutual bargains, the icebergs in client need analysis, the multimedia platform proposals clubbing TV with digital) more frequently in the teaching programs. This would make the teaching sessions more relatable for the learners, and learning more authentic and practical, thereby keeping the learners stay interested and curious.
PIDP course has lit a spark in me and keeping a growth mindset, I would stay connected with PIDP teachers and peers and keep myself updated on adult education to help me continuously evolve in my dual role of learner and instructor.
I strongly believe that above deliberate actions would adapt my teaching to evolving learners, industries and technologies.
References (APA 7th Edition)
Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., III, & Swanson, R. A. (2015). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (8th ed.). Routledge.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall.
Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. Jossey-Bass.
Norton, R. E., & Moser, J. (2008). DACUM handbook (3rd ed.). Center on Education and Training for Employment, The Ohio State University.


















