'The Essentials of Method,'

'The important thing is that thinking is the method of an educative experience. The essentials of method are therefore identical with the essentials of reflection. They are first that the pupil have a genuine situation of experience - that there be a continuous activity in which he is interested for its own sake; secondly that a genuine problem develop within this situation as a stimulus to thought; third that he possess the information and make the observations needed to deal with it; fourth that suggested solutions occur to him which he shall be responsible for developing in an orderly way; fifth that he have opportunity and occasion to test his ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to discover for himself their validity."

John Dewey, Democracy and Education, 1916