When starting out as a new instructor you may find yourself trying to be a clone of an instructor you had in your past educational experiences.  While this may on the surface seem like a good idea since he or she was a dynamic and effective educator it can lead to some challenges and missed educational opportunities.  You can only be who you are. Don't try to play a role that is not you.  Take stock of your attributes as well as your concern areas so you can have a picture of yourself as an instructor. While you can identify and then use certain of the traits that you found effective with your role model instructor you still have to project your own personality into the class.  If you find that you don’t feel comfortable in front of a class, you have a couple of options available to you. One, practice, practice, practice developing this skill area or two, leave teaching. There are certain requirements of all instructors and being in front of a class is one of them. You need to develop the skills required to be competent in this area. Keep in mind, this does not mean that you have to be an expert lecturer; you can always explore other ways of presenting the material to your students. If you are a new instructor, you are striving to find your comfort zone as the educational leader of the class.  Try different approaches like using case studies, learning groups or mini-lectures to see which work best for the students and your comfort level.  You will quickly see what are the most effective instructional delivery methods to use in relation to your personality and instructional style.