Teaching CAD with Onshape: Classes & Assignments Explained

Quick Summary:

• Classes & Assignments organizes CAD coursework in Onshape for Education, reducing file chaos, version confusion, and manual sharing.
• It fits existing teaching workflows, supports any course length, works alongside LMS tools, and is easy to reuse each term.
• Flexible assignments, scheduling, version history, and in‑context feedback help educators track progress and guide students.

I spent many years in the classroom teaching engineering, computer science, and robotics, and one challenge was constant: Managing student work often took more effort than teaching the material itself.

Between multiple class sections, shared files, missing submissions, and version confusion, it was easy for management to get in the way of learning.

Onshape’s Classes & Assignments was built to address those challenges directly. It gives educators a clear, structured way to organize students, distribute CAD work, and review progress, without relying on complex folder systems or manual file sharing.

Today, it’s a core part of how many educators teach CAD with Onshape, from introductory courses to long‑term design projects.

What Are Classes & Assignments?

At its core, Classes & Assignments is an educator‑focused workflow inside Onshape. It allows instructors to create classes that mirror how they already organize their courses, add students and teaching assistants, and assign CAD work in a way that keeps everything tied together.

Instead of hunting through shared documents, educators can open a class and immediately see the work associated with it.

The goal isn’t to change how you teach – it’s to reduce the overhead of managing CAD coursework so you can spend more time on instruction, feedback, and student learning.

Who Uses Classes & Assignments?

Classes & Assignments is designed for educators teaching CAD to groups of students who want a clear, organized way to manage coursework, whether that instruction happens over an entire term or within a shorter teaching window.

It works well for educators teaching multi‑section courses or ongoing programs, but it is equally useful for one‑off courses, short units, workshops, camps, or professional learning experiences.

In these settings, instructors still need to share CAD work, collect submissions, and review progress in a structured way. Classes & Assignments provides a lightweight framework that can be set up quickly and reused as needed without requiring long‑term course infrastructure.

Onshape is not a Learning Management System, and Classes & Assignments does not integrate directly with LMS platforms. Instead, it is designed to work alongside them.

Many educators link directly to Onshape assignments from systems like Canvas, Schoology, or Google Classroom, allowing students to access CAD work in Onshape while grades, communication, and course administration remain in the LMS they already use.

Sharing assignments this way is simple and flexible, making it easy to incorporate Onshape into existing teaching workflows.

How Educators Typically Use It

In practice, most educators use Classes & Assignments in a straightforward way: They create a class for each section or cohort they teach, add students once at the beginning of the term, then create assignments as the course progresses.

Student work stays organized within the class, making it easier to review progress without searching for files. When the term ends, the class can be cloned and reused, preserving structure and assignments for the next group of students.

Pro tip: Match your rosters to the classes you create. This makes reviewing student work easier, and the Clone feature allows you to carry the same assignments across multiple sections without rebuilding them each time.

This approach mirrors how educators already think about their courses and significantly reduces setup time and ongoing management.

Assignment Flexibility

Creating assignments is a quick process and is designed to support a wide range of teaching styles and instructional contexts. Educators can create assignments in three distinct ways, depending on how much structure they want to provide:

• Start from a blank document: Students begin with an empty document, giving them full freedom for open‑ended design challenges, project‑based learning, or exploratory work.
• Use a starter document: Educators can provide a starter document to scaffold lessons, guide skill development, or align assignments with Onshape Learning Center curriculum.
• Submit existing work: For longer‑term or independent projects, students can submit an existing document, making it easy to incorporate work that may have started outside of a single class session.

Educators also have control over how student work is shared:

• Allow collaboration, enabling students to share their assignment documents with teammates
• Restrict editing to the individual student, which is often preferred for assessments or independent work

To support clearer timelines and classroom pacing, assignments can also be scheduled to open and close automatically. This allows educators to set availability windows in advance, helping students understand expectations while reducing the need for manual publishing or follow‑up at deadlines.

Each assignment generates a unique link, which can be shared directly with students or posted in an LMS as part of an existing course workflow.

7 Tips for Getting the Most from Classes & Assignments

Once you’re up and running with Classes & Assignments, a few small workflow habits can make a big difference in how efficiently you manage student work and set expectations for students.

1. Use Assignment Status to Manage Submissions

You can update an assignment’s status directly from the assignment list by clicking the status icon. When you’re finished receiving student submissions, closing the assignment removes the submit button from student documents and clearly signals that the work period has ended.

2. Rely on the Details Panel for Quick Context

The Details panel on the right side of the assignment view provides a snapshot of what’s happening at a glance, including how many students have started or submitted the assignment. It’s a quick way to check progress without opening individual documents.

3. Track Progress with Assignment States

The Assignment view makes it easy to track submissions and review student work. Educators can mark work as Graded or Needs Revision. When an assignment is marked as Needs Revision, the student receives a notification prompting them to revisit and improve their work.

4. Review Student Progress Using Versions and History

Every time a student submits an assignment, a submission version is automatically created. Using the Versions and History panel, you can view the document exactly as it existed at the time of submission and track how student work evolves over time.

5. Leave Feedback Directly in Student Documents

Comments can be added directly to student submissions to provide feedback and guidance. Using the Tag Entity feature allows you to link comments to specific parts of a model or document, making it easier for students to understand and act on feedback. Students are notified when comments are added.

6. Clone Classes to Reuse Work

At the end of a term, you can clone an active, unpublished, or archived class. Cloning creates a new class with draft copies of all assignments but no enrolled students, making it easy to reuse and refine coursework without starting from scratch.

7. Schedule Assignments to Support Pacing and Deadlines

Assignments can be scheduled to open and close automatically, allowing you to set clear availability windows for students. The assignment list indicates which assignments have scheduled open and close dates, and those assignments can still be manually published or closed directly from the assignment list when plans change. Scheduling is especially helpful for managing deadlines, coordinating work across multiple sections, or supporting short‑term courses and workshops where timing matters.

Getting Started

Educators on the free Educator Plan can begin creating classes and assignments immediately. In Education Enterprise environments, access is enabled by an administrator adding educators to the Educator team.

If you want more information about how to use Classes & Assignments and its features, check out the Teaching a Class in Onshape self-paced course in the Onshape Learning Center.

Check out this back-to-school webinar to help you get the new school year off to a great start.

Ask any questions or share ideas about what could be improved in the Education Community’s Onshape Forums discussion. This is also a great place to engage with the amazing group of educators using Onshape in their classrooms.