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At a fundamental level, the relationship
between athletes and their environments can be conceptualised as a
complex system with many interacting parts capable of interacting on
different levels. From this relationship, rich patterns of behaviour
can emerge under a range of constraints. In recent times, empirical
work has sought to investigate how individual agents in the system
co-adapt their behaviours as system outputs emerge. The aim of this
presentation is to discuss the implications of these ideas for
pedagogical practice in sport. A key idea is that self-organisation
processes, inherent to many different biological systems including
human movement systems, constrains the emergence of movement
patterns, cognitions and decision making processes in performers as
well as learners during practice. |
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A major role for pedagogists is to
identify key constraints on learners, particularly informational and
task constraints, and manipulate them so that individuals are pushed
to a region of self-organised criticality during practice. In the
region of self-organised criticality, interdependency between system
agents exists and slight changes in near-neighbour interactions can
break the balance of equally poised options leading to transitions
in system order. Rich, creative patterns of behaviour can emerge as
individuals co-adapt their actions to satisfy the specific task
constraints imposed by coaches and teachers. Variability of actions
can lead to novel behaviours and pedagogists should understand how
to design learning environments to facilitate functionally, variable
cognitions, decisions and actions in individuals. |
