Christine Miles

I think it is very important not to "play up" the part of quitting on behalf of the student. Although we must all think about the possibility of attrition, it does not need to be in the fore front of how we handle our classroom. I always tell students I expect them to have difficulties at some point in time because everything they are learning is new to them. They can't be embarrassed or ashamed because they don't know something which is really foreign to them.It's not like they really have someone to go home to and talk medical (I teach in an MA program),If they already knew it all, they wouldn't be in school to learn it.Don't think about quitting before you've begun to learn, or at least given it a chance.

Loren Kroh

I think it's very difficult to separate good classroom management, instruction and retention practices. They are all very closely related. As you point out, Christine, you anticipate that new students will encounter difficulties. By sharing this with your students, you are being proactive about retention issues. Presumably you are also identifying resources to deal with these issues.