Abstract:

This article presents the organization, methodology and results of a pedagogical research on the use of “Mind Maps” in teaching literature in the period 2015-2019. Its main purpose is to analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of the “Mind Maps” method in literary education, and in particular as part of the Children and Teenage Literature course. The study included 94 bachelors of II and III courses in the specialty Bulgarian language and History at the University of Ruse (Bulgaria).

Organization and methodology of pedagogical research:
1. Demonstration through a lecture-presentation of the possibilities of “Mind Map” (a teaching method created by the British psychologist Tony Buzan) implemented in the course Children and Teenage Literature.
2. Develop methodological guidelines to assist teachers and trainees in creating and using “Mind Map” in literature training. Our article "USING DIFFERENT CARDS IN TEACHING LITERATURE WITH THE AID OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES" (2015) has been published. The article is well received by the Academic Community in the relevant field and has been cited in several different scientific publications.
3. As part of the training, students independently create mind maps on topics included in the course syllabus. They work with Word, Power Point and the specialized software products "iMindMap 8" and "Inspiration 9". In the course of the task they are assisted by the knowledge acquired during the practical activities of Information and communication technologies in education and working in digital environment – a discipline of their curriculum.
4. Conducting surveys with students to examine their attitudes toward the used “Mind Map” teaching method. The questionnaire includes 12 open and closed questions. Google Forms is used as a custom survey tool.
5. The analysis of the results of the survey is done using Google Forms.

The pedagogical study concerns several aspects: attitude to the method (positive, negative traits, difficulty in implementation, etc.); a comparative analysis between the application of the method in teaching and other teaching methods; establishing the students' attitude to create an interdisciplinary link between Literature and Information Technology; determining the extent to which the interdisciplinary approach assists learners in acquiring knowledge and assists the input of knowledge into their long-term memory as well as self-assessment of making their own mind map.

Through pedagogical research the results of the application of the method of "Mind Map" in the course Children and Teenage Literature are monitored. The results and conclusions of the conducted qualitative research are described. The results of the study will help to enrich teaching methods, to better integrate Literature with Contemporary Information Technologies, and to improve the quality of the learning process.

Keywords:

Pedagogical research, Mind map, teaching, Children and teenage literature, interdisciplinary, Information Technologies.