RESEARCH ARTICLE


Constraints-led Approach and Emergent Learning: Using Complexity Thinking to Frame Collectives in Creative Dance and Inventing Games as Learning Systems



Timothy Hopper*
Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, University of Victoria, PO Box 3015 STN CSC, VICTORIA. BC. V8W 3P1, Canada


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Creative Commons License
© 2012 Hopper et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Faculty of Education, Univer-sity of Victoria, School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, University of Victoria, PO Box 3015 STN CSC, VICTORIA. BC. V8W 3P1, Canada; Tel: 1 250 721 8385; Fax: 1250 721 6601; E-mail: thopper@uvic.ca


Abstract

This paper will describe complexity theory as framing an emergent learning process. This process will be con-nected to a constraint-led approach to skill learning and a non-linear pedagogy perspective in physical education[1]. Often traditional and common sense notions of learning are framed as a correspondence process focused on acquiring or accu-mulating information such as repetition of technical cues in PE to do a skill in an activity. In this paper I will elaborate on a broader conception of learning systems, shifting concepts of learning from correspondence to coherence theories of knowing, where learning is described as an emergent process. By way of examples, this paper will discuss how pedagogi-cal approaches associated with creative dance [2] and inventing games [3]can form complex learning systems that can be understood using complexity thinking.

Keywords: Complexity thinking, Learning system, Emergence, Physical Education, Dance, Games, Constraints-led approach, Non-linear pedagogy.