These are some of the aspects of successful learning environments that vartious teachers have identified:

1. Affect
   • feeling of success
   • support
   • appreciation
   • recognition
   • alive
   • laughter
   • visible signs of learning
2. Values
   • Acceptance of difference
     • language use
     • beliefs
     • values
   • Critical awareness
     • political consciousness
     • understanding of schooling
     • relation of personal, family, societal goals
3. Learning as a process
   • sense making
   • student directed
   • affective
   • holistic
   • experiential
   • time to build
   • revision
   • space as well as time frame
   • open-ended
   • challenging problems
   • alternate conceptions
   • visible strategies
4. Participants
   • Students
     • taking responsibility
     • making decisions
     • initiating inquiry
     • self-initiated learning
   • Teachers
     • as co-workers
     • as coaches
     • as helpers
   • Involved parents
   • Collaboration
     • flexible roles
     • with other students
     • with teachers
     • with members of the larger community
5. Environment
   • Integration
     • projects
     • theme studies
     • literacy across the curriculum
   • Language use
     • evolving
     • linked with ordinary experience
     • teacher excitement
   • Sharing
     • in and beyond the classroom
     • drama
     • publishing
     • real audiences
   • Forums for communication
     • sharing ideas about teaching and learning
     • opportunity to develop literacy skills
     • multiple media and genres
   • Purposes
     • personal
     • shared with students and teacher
     • community
     • outcomes
   • Resources
     • texts
       • variety of genres, topics, difficulty levels
       • student selected
       • authentic
     • in the community
     • technology for meaningful purposes