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In this series of two articles, we connect complexity theoretical frameworks of ecological dynamics and enactivism to initiatives for learning to play tennis advocated by USTA and Tennis Canada. These initiatives were inspired by the International Tennis Federation commitment to reduce the complexity of learning tennis by rescaling the game for children and novice players. This article suggests that tennis teaching is shifting from a skill and drill approach to one embracing a play-practice-play idea in line with Ecological Dynamics. Considering players as dynamic and adaptive sense-making beings, this article outlines how these initiatives create the conditions to embrace insights from motor learning in relation to a constraints-led approach, and enactivism from embodied cognition. This first article concludes with applying an enactivist teaching strategy called modification by adaptation to these tennis initiatives, showing how players of diverse ability can challenge each other, promoting more game-based dynamic learning. [For part 2, see EJ1370957.]

The second article (Part 2) builds on the theoretical and contextual foundation developed in paper one by exploring in more depth how to teach tennis based on the use of USTA modified equipment and Tennis Canada's play-practice-play program. Drawing on the enactivist cognitive approach to teaching tennis, this paper shows how tennis players, through participatory sense making processes and non-conscious behavioral mimicry, self-organize their action spaces in relation to affordances in the game environment, including their opponent. Using modification by adaptation games this paper highlights specific examples associated with common tactical concepts of time, space, risk and force that can be used to maximize players' game-based learning. [For part 1, see EJ1370956.]

This manuscript outlines the possible benefits of nonconscious behavioural mimicry (NBM) to Physical Education (PE). The identification of NBM as an unexamined phenomenon in PE will be explored, as well as factors mediating its occurrence. Further, this manuscript will discuss the speculated origins of this phenomenon within the human species. Drawing on ecological cognition, this paper seeks to explain how students in PE could benefit from NBM in mixed ability groupings within adaptive environmental constraints. Describing a volleyball example using teaching strategies informed by both Teaching Games for Understanding and the Sport Education Model, the authors propose possible benefits and applications of this phenomenon in game-based PE lessons.

A common complaint about teacher education programs is that it follows a linear model--where theory and teaching skills are learned at the university and then applied in practicum experiences--that is inadequate and does not accurately represent teacher candidates'(TC) experiences (Brouwer & Korthagen, 2005; Korthagen, Loughran & Russell, 2006). Indeed, teacher education programs have long been faced with the challenge of a "theory/practice divide", creating what has been seen as a mechanistic separation between university programs (where it is implied theory is learned) and the practicum (where it is implied skills and strategies are learned). This divide continues once teacher candidates become teachers in their own classrooms, where the divide further widens by valuing of the practical over the theoretical. We need a new frame of reference to understand teacher education as a whole (throughout a professional career), as emerging from interconnected, non-linear, and at times unpredictable structures. Teacher education programs should form in relation to teacher professional learning, student learning, and the realities of dynamically evolving modern-day schools. In our institutions, the ongoing tension between learning sites of campus and schools is reduced in the teacher education partnership called Link2Practice, where TCs' courses are integrated in a school district program with teachers who are making inquiries into their practice. This partnership responds to the increasing need for educators to understand and remain current about the interactions between TCs, K-12 public schools' students and the pedagogy practices, informed by theory, that they advocate. This paper describes the development of the Link2Practice model and discusses its importance for teacher education.

This article explores Complexity Theory and applications of nonlinear dynamics in physical education (PE). The authors of this article discuss Complexity Theory and its applications to students and student learning. Additionally, there will be discussion of how the networking learning process associated with socio-coordinated mimicry creates a "movement conversation" between learners rooted in the relational complexity of students within a PE lesson. Finally, the authors discuss research opportunities within PE, allowing for a close collaboration between pedagogical researchers and biomechanists to examine the emergent qualities within the "movement conversations" between students. Overall, this article seeks to illustrate the possibilities of utilizing Complexity Theory within PE pedagogy and research.