The system whereby teacher education faculty demonstrate their professional rectitude in most colleges and universities is a record of achievement more properly called a dossier (a collection of material and evidence) rather than a portfolio (the developmental record of a career). The scholarship of teaching (one of four overlapping functions of scholarship identified by Ernest Boyer) can be captured, together with the other functions of scholarship (scholarship of discovery, of integration, and of application), in a portfolio model that frames the necessary connections between theory and praxis. The creative character of teacher learning can be captured by portfolio assessment when the portfolio is a collection of the faculty member's best work and demonstration of professional vitality and vibrancy. Research has shown that faculty members who report benefits from putting course portfolios together are those who reflect on what their objectives were, what they did to accomplish them, and how that was reflected. The portfolio assessment process relies on the Deweyan notion that transformative experience can be done by common people sharing thoughts and insights in a cooperative and critical manner. The portfolio can, with proper understanding, be the way to reveal the hidden treasure of meaning. (Contains 11 references.) (JDD)