Help Your Students Organize Their Notes with Tags and Smart Folders

In my many years of teaching math, I have learned that I need to help build my students' executive functioning skills, especially those related to organizing, planning, and sorting information.

iPad Notes app using Tags and Smart Folders

Notes is a great place to employ these skills using Tags and Smart Folders. With a small investment of time spent adding tags, the payout of easy access and organization is well worth it!

Using Tags in Notes

Adding Tags

You can add tags to new notes you create by typing a hashtag (#) then typing the word or words (joined together with hyphens or underscores) anywhere in the note, including the title. You can also add tags to existing notes by selecting one or more notes, tapping Tags at the bottom of the screen, then selecting the tags you want to add.

Math Terms for Tags

Developmentally, students may choose tags too narrow or too broad at first. That's why I like to make the connection to our syllabus or even to the table of contents in our textbook to identify key terms to use for tags. If the students will use Notes in multiple math classes in their school career, the name of the course should be one of the tags they use, #Algebra1 or #Geometry, for example. The unit title is also a good idea, such as #Solving_Equations or #Quadratic_Functions. If there is a concept that is a common thread through the course, such as #Domain_Range, that would be a good plan to use as a tag, too.

Another idea for tags is to use #Notes, #Homework, #Study_Guide, or other general category of resource the students will use in class. The beauty of using tags in Notes comes with searching and using.

Searching Notes with Tags

Once you have invested the short amount of time to add tags to your notes, you can search by tapping one or more tags that are displayed under the folders list.

Notice if two tags are selected, those notes that include both tags will be displayed in the next window. Searching by tags saves time and potential frustration when finding content created and archived in Notes.

Using Smart Folders in Notes

Smart Folders act like filters and will follow the rules you create to continually organize your notes. The screen recording below shows how I set up a Smart Folder using certain tags I had already created. My notes remain in the original folders but can also be accessed through this new Smart Folder I called Math Notes:

I recommend sharing these tips with your students and encouraging them to practice quickly accessing their notes in this way as they build their executive functioning skills. Learn more about Using Tags and Smart Folders in Notes on your iPhone and iPad from Apple Support.

Do you have an organization system for your own notes using Tags and Smart Folders? Share your ideas to enhance these tips in the comments below.