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

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.