The Game Sense approach as play with purpose

Abstract

Game-based pedagogical approaches for games and sport teaching have been distinguished by some authors through the more prominent emphasis on guided discovery teaching and player reflective thinking than what occurs in the more historically common sport-as-sport techniques approach, which is exemplified by a ‘transmission’ method of instruction. In this chapter, we suggest that rather than be seen as competing approaches, game-based approaches can be viewed as a ‘toolkit’ of instructional styles governed by a fundamental proposition – pedagogical decision making. We examine a game-based coaching episode and identify the decisions being made between the coach and players using the Spectrum of Teaching Styles (Mosston & Ashworth, 2008). By doing this, we detail important pedagogical concepts and unify pedagogical decision making that takes place when sport coaching is aimed across the ‘discovery barrier’ and into an intentionally designed space to develop ‘thinking players’.