Abstract
In physical education, the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) pedagogical strategy has attracted significant attention from theoreticians and educators for allowing the development of game education through a tactic-to-skill approach involving the use of modified games. However, some have proposed that as an educational framework, it lacks adequate theoretical grounding from a motor learning perspective to empirically augment its perceived effectiveness. The authors examine the literature base providing the theoretical underpinning for TGfU and explore the potential of a nonlinear pedagogical framework, based on dynamical systems theory, as a suitable explanation for TGfU’s effectiveness in physical education. Nonlinear pedagogy involves manipulating key task constraints on learners to facilitate the emergence of functional movement patterns and decision-making behaviors. The authors explain how interpreting motor learning processes from a nonlinear pedagogical framework can underpin the educational principles of TGfU and provide a theoretical rationale for guiding the implementation of learning progressions in physical education.