CHAPTER 7
PRESENTATIONS
Presentations are an important tool within
the Command Religious Program. They are
used by chaplains and religious education (RE)
instructors to entertain, to persuade, to inform,
and to instruct an audience or a class. Quite
often, the chaplain or the RE instructor will use
audiovisuals in a presentation to reinforce the
message or idea to be communicated. Religious
Program Specialists (RPs) provide chaplains and
volunteer RE instructors the audiovisual and
presentation support they need in order to make
their presentations. This chapter will provide the
RP with the basic information necessary to per-
form these and other related tasks.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
PRESENTATIONS
In addition to providing audiovisual and
presentation support to chaplains and RE
instructors, Religious Program Specialists are
required to instruct and assist volunteer person-
nel in religious education methods and in the use
of religious educational material. RE instructors
must have certain fundamental skills in order to
make their presentations and to teach effec-
tively. The degree of audiovisual support
required by RE instructors will depend upon
their knowledge of the learning process and of
basic instructional techniques.
Religious Program Specialists must be able
to instruct volunteer personnel as to the learning
process, use of instructional techniques, types of
audiovisual aids, selection of audiovisual aids,
and basic presentation support. These areas will
be discussed in this chapter,
THE LEARNING PROCESS
Learning is defined by Webster as the
“acquisition of knowledge or skill” but few
instructors have actually analyzed the learning
process to determine just how this “acquisition
of knowledge or skill” occurs. It is generally
accepted, however,
that learning occurs in
response to sensory stimuli—seeing, hearing,
feeling, tasting, and smelling.
The stimulation of one or more of the five
senses is the first step in the learning process.
Volunteer RE instructors must provide the sen-
sory stimulus necessary for RE students to
receive new information. This new information
must be relevant and help achieve the learning
objectives of the lesson.
The second step in the learning process is the
student’s, response to the sensory stimulus of the
instructor. The change that takes place in the
student as a result of sensory stimulus represents
the “acquisition of knowledge or skill” or more
simply—learning. The RE instructor can be
guided by two factors. First, the more well-
placed, timely sensory stimuli the student
receives, the better the chance that learning will
occur. Second, the more vivid the stimuli, the
better the chance that learning will occur.
The stimulation of two senses, sight and
hearing, can make a far more vivid impression
upon the student than the stimulation that only
one sense could make. Experiments have shown
that about 75% of what a person learns is
acquired through the sense of sight, whereas
only about 13% is acquired through the sense of
hearing. The phrase, “a picture is worth ten
thousand words, ” does, in fact, contain an ele-
ment of truth. It is important to remember that
the senses are most effective in combination with
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