This project investigated how Australian Capital Territory (ACT) teachers of physical education (PE) assess games and sports as a Focus Area in the "Australian curriculum health and physical education" (AC: HPE). Figurational sociology, including the concept of habitus was used to inform the study and make sense of the findings. The…

This article describes the concept of "driveway tennis" as a construct for student games making in physical education as an option for teaching sport for understanding. We connect the notion of games making in PE with a game-based teaching approach using the example of the Game Sense approach. We demonstrate how the concept of driveway…

In this research, we show how a quality teaching framework can be used with psychology, specifically self-determination theory (SDT), and a Game Sense Approach (GSA) to plan and teach a unit of work as a context-specific version of quality Physical Education. This unit of work using Buroinjin, an Australian Aboriginal traditional game, was taught…

Research commentary suggests the utilization of Tactical Games Models (TGMs) only exists in isolated instances, particularly where teachers demonstrate true fidelity to these models. In contrast, many academics have adopted TGMs into their courses. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to investigate reasons for this disparity. Participants…

Purpose: To explore a teacher educator professional learning opportunity within the context of a taught unit of work at a government primary school in Canberra, Australia's national capital. The unit of work focus was a traditional Australian Aboriginal game taught using a Game Sense Approach to deliver a socially just version of quality physical…

Background: Teaching games for understanding (TGfU) has stimulated so much attention, research and debate since the 1980s that it is easy for its origins to become refracted and misunderstood. For example, in a recent edition of the "Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy" journal there was paper arguing a constraints-led approach (CLA)…

This paper reports on research framed as a strengths-based appreciative inquiry (AI) into the use of a game sense (GS) approach for sport and games teaching in physical education (PE). The aim of this research was to find the elements which sustain teachers in the use of a GS approach. This is particularly pertinent given strong advocacy for GS as…

Although some may think of game-based teaching as a 'tactical' teaching style instructionally distinctive by an emphasis on guided discovery, this article shows that it is more accurate to think of it as a range of teaching styles or a 'toolkit' of styles. Mosston and Ashworth's spectrum of teaching styles is used to analyze examples of learning…

What could a sport coach or sport teacher within physical education learn from digital game design and the way digital games capture, sustain, and maintain children's attention? Would the physical education learning experience be different if physical educators designed and enacted sport teaching by attempting to accommodate the learning needs and…

Over 30 years ago the original teaching games for understanding (TGfU) proposition was published in a special edition of the Bulletin of Physical Education (Bunker and Thorpe, 1982). In that time TGfU has attracted significant attention from a theoretical and pedagogical perspective as an improved approach to games and sport teaching in physical…