Proposal Abstract
In January 2008, a conference will be held at Brandeis University on the teaching of rabbinic literature, as part of an ongoing research project at the Mandel Center entitled the Initiative on Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies. This conference will bring together teachers and scholars of rabbinic literature from colleges and universities, rabbinical seminaries, institutes for advanced Jewish studies, synagogues, and k-12 schools. In addition to learning with and from one another, the conference will promote the power and the potential of teaching among the participants. And most importantly, the conference will contribute to the development of the scholarship of teaching rabbinic literature - a sub-field of the scholarship of teaching that is in its infancy - through the publication of papers and presentations.

Learning Abstract
This project was based on a hypothesis that teachers and scholars of rabbinic literature from a variety of settings would be intrigued by the prospect of coming together to explore the teaching of their subject. That hypothesis proved to be correct. For two days, over 200 people attended presentations on everything from teaching midrash to children, to teaching the history of ancient Israel to college students, to teaching halakhic literature to adults. The energy and enthusiasm of the participants was corroborated by robust evaluation data. And videos of the presentations have already been downloaded thousands of times. Alongside the sense of accomplishment, however, is a renewed appreciation of the difficulty of developing the scholarship of teaching. Countless hours were invested to encourage presenters to move beyond exploration of fascinating aspects of the subject to fascinating (or better, troublesome) aspects of teaching the subject, and from advocacy to disciplined inquiry. Naturally, some investments paid off more than others.

Grant Topics
Gathering Faculty across Institutions
Teaching a Specific Subject