Game Sense is an exciting and innovative approach to coaching and physical education that places the gameat the heart of the session. It encourages the player to develop skills in a realistic context, to become more tactically aware, to make better decisions and to have more fun. Game Senseis a comprehensive, research-informed introduction to the Game Sense approach that defines and explores key concepts and essential pedagogical theory, and that offers an extensive series of practical examples and plans for using Game Sense in real teaching and coaching situations. The first section of the book helps the reader to understand how learning occurs and how this informs player-centred pedagogy.It also explains the relationship between Game Sense and other approaches to Teaching Games for Understanding. The second section of the book demonstrates how the theory can be applied in practice, providing a detailed, step-by-step guide to using Game Sense in eleven sports, including soccer, basketball, field hockey and softball. No other book explores the Game Sense approach in such depth, or combines theory and innovative practical techniques. Game Senseis invaluable reading for all students of physical education or sports coaching, any in-service physical education teacher or any sports coach working with children or young people.

Sport coaching has grown significantly as an area of research interest with an expanding number of sport coaching programs offered. The past decade or so has also seen significant interest in games-based approaches to coaching and teaching games. On a global level, Game Sense is one of the most recognized athlete-centred approaches for team sports, probably close behind Teaching Games for Understanding. Game Sense for Coaching and Teaching provides an understanding of how an Australian approach to coaching has grown and developed as it has been taken up across the globe. While the focus is on Game Sense, the book also offers insights into how any coaching or physical education (PE) teaching approach changes as it is adapted to different contexts across the world, examining the theoretical, historical and philosophical foundations of sport coaching and teaching in schools. This book is particularly useful for undergraduate and post-graduate sport coaching and PE courses but is also likely to be of interest for all practicing sports coaches or physical education teachers and lecturers.

Developing Game Sense in Physical Education and Sport provides coaches and teachers with practical instructions to help learners develop the skills and understanding they need to effectively play games and sports. It offers instruction in invasion games, striking and fielding games, and net and wall games.

This new book brings together leading and innovative thinkers in the field of teaching and sport coaching pedagogy to provide a range of perspectives on teaching games and sport for understanding. Teaching Games and Sport for Understanding engages undergraduate and postgraduate students in physical education and sport coaching, practicing teachers, practicing sport coaches, teacher educators and coach developers. The contributions, taken together or individually, provide insight, learning and opportunities to foster game-based teaching and coaching ideas, and provide conceptual and methodological clarity where a sense of pedagogical confusion may exist. Each chapter raises issues that can resonate with the teacher and sport practitioner and researcher. In this way, the chapters can assist one to make sense of their own teaching or sport coaching, provide deeper insight into personal conceptualisations of the concept of game-based teaching and sport coaching or stimulate reflections on their own teaching or coaching or the contexts they are involved in. Teaching games and sport for understanding in various guises and pedagogical models has been proposed as leading practice for session design and instructional delivery of sport teaching in PE and sport coaching since the late 1960s. At its core, it is a paradigm shift from what can be described as a behaviourist model of highly directive instruction for player replication of teacher/coach explanation and demonstration to instructional models that broadly are aimed at the development of players self-autonomy as self-regulated learners –‘thinking players’. This innovative new volume both summarises current thinking, debates and practical considerations about the broad spectrumof what teaching games for understanding means as well as providing direction for further practical, pragmatic and research consideration of the concept and its precepts and, as such, is key reading for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of physical education and sport coaching as well as practicing teachers and sport coaches.

The concept of positive pedagogy has transformed the way we understand learning and coaching in sport. Presenting examples of positive pedagogy in action, this book is the first to apply its basic principles to individual sports such as swimming, athletics, gymnastics and karate. Using the game based approach (GBA) (an athlete-centred, inquiry-based method that involves game-like activities), this book demonstrates how positive pedagogy can be successfully employed across a range of sports and levels of performance, while also providing insight into coaches’ experiences of this approach. Divided into three sections that focus on the development, characteristics and applications of positive pedagogy, it fills a gap in coaching literature by extending the latest developments of GBA to activities beyond team sports. It pioneers a way of coaching that is both efficient in improving performance and effective in promoting positive experiences of learning across all ages and abilities. Positive Pedagogy for Sport Coaching: Athlete-centred coaching for individual sports is invaluable reading for all sports coaching students as well as any practising coach or physical education teacher looking for inspiration.

Presents a comprehensive guide for teachers and coaches that details the history, theory, research, and practice of the Teaching Games for Understanding model, and how to incorporate it in both elementary and secondary curriculum.

This book offers new perspectives on game-based coaching (GBC), one of the most important practices for session design and instructional delivery in sport coaching. GBC emphasises the sport coach as educator and the development of ‘thinking players’, and this book demonstrates what that means in practice. It brings together leading and innovative thinkers and practitioners in coaching pedagogy, and aims to stimulate reflection by the reader on their own coaching practice. Reviewing recent theoretical developments and current research in GBC, the book provides in-depth examples on how research can be applied in practice, including the use of digital video games, immersive scenario-based coaching narratives, and the Game Sense approach as ‘play with purpose’. Representing the most up-to-date and engaging introduction to the theory and practice of GBC, this book is invaluable reading for all students of physical education and sport coaching, as well as practising coaches and coach educators.