We report the preliminary results of a research aimed at designing and testing strategies to help teachers to reflect on a physics content area in connection with their activity in the classroom. Our research is carried out within the Italian national project “Physics as a Cultural Formation”, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, involving researchers operating in different Universities.
We developed a proposal for the initial preparation of high school teachers and tested it with student teachers attending the graduate school of our University for teaching Mathematics and Physics. The content area considered is thermodynamics and, in particular, the concept of internal energy. The approach we propose is based on the use of mechanical models to bridge processes involving the microscopic structure with the macroscopic properties of a system; the material produced is available on the web. Our teaching proposal requires four phases of work with different aims. The future teachers follow a path which starts from a reflection on physics concepts underlying the whole proposal, continues with laboratory activities and use of models (animations and simulation), leads the student teachers to design plans of work for the classroom and to experiment them with pupils within their teaching practice. In this formation path all the in-service teachers, who play the role of tutors during the activity of student teachers in their classrooms, are involved in a parallel analysis and discussion of the material produced for the teaching proposal. Results of the first trial of our approach will be presented.