Workspace Modes

Two workspaces, one account

Your ProfDesk account opens a full Teacher workspace: courses, gradebook, ZenGrader, rubrics, attendance, analytics, learning modules and messaging. Because many instructors are also learners, the same account can flip into a Student workspace, your courses to submit to, feedback, and returned grades, without a second login.

Switching modes

When your account supports both sides, a Teacher / Student toggle appears in the top navigation. Teacher mode shows a chalkboard icon; Student mode shows a graduation cap. Switching is instant and only changes which workspace you're looking at, your data on both sides is untouched.

Who gets which workspace

• Teachers (unified accounts), self sign-up accounts get the Teacher workspace and can toggle into Student mode to take courses themselves.
• Students you create, accounts an instructor issues open directly into the Student workspace; there's nothing to configure.
• Admins, monitor-only; no course creation and no mode toggle.

An instructor-issued account can later be connected to a full federated ProfDesk account. While connected, its courses appear in Student mode and its student-specific files use the federated storage allowance. If it is disconnected, or the federated account is deleted, the live class record and storage responsibility return to the instructor.

Related concepts

Students reach their courses either by joining with a class code or connecting an instructor-issued account. For the teacher side, start with Getting Started.