Get Organized as a Learning Coach with Notes

By utilizing the Notes app, you can maximize your organization while documenting your impact as a coach. For the past few years, I have worked on creating a simple system to organize my notes, evidence of work, and important information. I tend to work from my iPad so that I do not appear to be an evaluator when I am in classrooms. Utilizing the built in Notes app has been my favorite resource for organizing my day to day as a coach.

Set Up Notes for Coaching

Below is an image of how I set up my basic folders. I divide my main folders into my areas of responsibility. Even though my main areas of support include coaching as a district, coaching on campuses, coaching people and teams yours may look different and benefit from titles you choose.

Within those overarching folders, I set up a few notes ahead of time if I am aware of campus/staff names and for district goals. If not, I take the time to work on my folders and notes during back to school. Feel free to peek into my folders and notes below.

Coaching as a District

I’m starting here because It is imperative that your coaching practices and time are utilized in a manner that supports district initiatives and goals. Within my district folder, I include a note to include that school year’s priorities, another to have District Improvement Plan information - I typically only include the goals that I specifically have the opportunity to impact and those that explicitly include coaches.  And a note with a screenshot of my evaluation rubric for easy reference throughout the school year.

Coaching Campuses 

As with a district, campus alignment towards goals with coaches is also very important.  I have at least one note per campus I am supporting with an overview of the campus vision, priorities, goals, and coaching plan.

Coaching Teams/People

Depending on the amount of the people I support determines the way I will set this up, but traditionally I make one note per specific team/teacher. I utilize team notes for planning, collaborative team time/professional learning community discussions, and more. The individual teacher notes is where I add notes from visiting classrooms. I take images of teachers working with learners and great classroom management or lesson ideas I may see around the room. I add screenshots of feedback emails or ideas they share with me. I might also draw/sketch an idea or link a resource I saw utilized as well. I add the date and time and always write above what was previously there to avoid having to scroll to the bottom each time.

Extra Benefits of Using Notes

Workflow

• Most recently edited notes automatically pop up to the top. This visual allows you to quickly notice which teachers you have not interacted with recently.
• Your Notes app will act as a portfolio of work for the school year, you can utilize it as a resource to share with your supervisor as part of your evaluation.
• Use Emojis in titles to help you find specific people and places faster.

Tech Features

Visit the Notes Apple Support Page for instructional tutorials for the following:

• Collaborative Notes
• Saving across devices
• Tagging notes
• Using the search bar to find specific notes quickly

More ideas

• Use Speech-to-Text to dictate notes on the move
• House a variety of resources (links, images, drawings, etc)
• Use formatting to draw attention to different areas of text

How do you utilize Notes as an App? Add your notes tips in the comments!