Introducing yourself in a professional, yet fun and light way may ease the students' nervousness during the first week of class. 

Purposeful planning is the best and effective way in ensuring that you can cover the material you need to cover and making sure that the students are engaged in your class. 

As professionals, we must strive to always improve our teaching techniques throughout our career. 

Having a rubric helps the instructor gauge the student's learning while the students are able to use this tool to ensure that they are engaging in activities set by the instructor. 

Active learning will require more effort from the instructor but is well worth it because ultimately, the learning is the student's reward and responsibility. There will be technological challenges in an online active learning environment, so it is imperative to have easily accessible resources available to the students and instructors to manage these challenges. 

Active learning is the key to student-centered learning. It is one of the most effective teaching methods because it focuses on engaging students in the learning process. Instead of just being "spoon fed" the information, students are able to participate in obtaining knowledge through various formats. I intend to apply this to all my didactic and lab classes to keep students engaged. I plan to incorporate many activities to reinforce the materials they have learned or have been given.