Portfolio Method: The Portfolio method of teaching on which Goha Learning is based was pioneered by Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff at State University of New York, Stoney Brook in the mid 1980's*. The approach, which has spread widely since then to include large scale implementation in colleges and school systems, is viewed here as both a teaching and an assessment tool.
Building on the concept of the artist's portfolio, the method allows students to put together a collection (portfolio) of their own work for evaluation puposes. While portfolios are implemented in astonishingly many different ways, the model introduced by Elbow and Belanoff requires that students put together for evaluation purposes a collection (portfolio) of their own work, and that evalution of the portfolio to be done by instructors other than the student's. The result produces a multi-dimensional portrayal of the student's skills and abilities.
Portfolio Clusters: In the Elbow Belanoff model of the portfolio method small groups of instructors design a collaborative syllabus and act as outside evaluators to each other's students. The "cluster" allows instructors to work closely (though not as "team-teaching") as they support each other and implement the program.
Electronic Portfolios: The marriage of portfolios with computers in the classroom has naturally produced electronic portfolio (ePorrtolios) to support, enhance, and exgtend the way portfolios are imlemented. The CourseFolio is one such attempt.
*Elbow, Peter, and Pat Belanoff. "State University of New York at Stony Brook Portfolio-based Evaluation Program" in Portfolios: Process and Product. Ed. Pat Belanoff and Marcia Dickson. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1991.