Building bridges between common sense ideas and a physics description of phenomena to develop formal thinking

A substantial scientific illiteracy amongst young people has been found associated with a reduction of interest in physics. The way in which physics has been taught to date and the lack of attention given to didactic aspects and to learning problems have a relevant role in this crisis in motivation, although this is not the sole problem. It has not been taken into account exactly what the student learns, despite numerous studies concerning conceptual knots. Physics has been taught in the same way in various types of schools and at all levels. Greater emphasis has been placed upon results rather than processes, using reductionism and schematizations, which destroy the capability to re-elaborate. Physics is therefore experienced as a difficult school subject which speaks of things that do not exist (the material point, the perfect gas,.), with difficult laws which one does not know when to use. The beauty, usefulness and the vast role of physics do not emerge through this type of teaching. A demand for new educational modalities is emerging: this involves physics-related content such as cultural items, which the teacher proposes to students not to be reproduced, but to be used in a creative manner. It is necessary to create a knowledge of the subject which is not static and definitive, but in progressive and continuous evolution, able to be utilized as a learning map to recognize and investigate problems, to resolve them in a creative manner without separating the product from the process, whilst enjoying a close relationship with the multiple dimensions of knowledge. In this study we discuss the main problems in scientific culture and the role of teaching / learning physics, concerning the role of teaching strategies and methods for learning processes and Physics Education Research (PER). In particular we will present our research approach focalizing on innovation in T/L, the contribution of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) towards learning and the associated reasoning dynamics. The construction of formal thought is discussed in three fields: : 1) using the example of objectual models which favor the student’s first interpretative steps, 2) illustrating approaches with ICT, 3) presenting a didactic path concerning quantum mechanics.