It can be very instructive to discuss with that student the reasons she/he wants to drop that course and transfer into yours. It might be because the other instructor is rude or abrasive, or seen as intimidating, or has very high expectations, may be using language the student finds offensive, may be making sexual overtures to the student, etc...
Once you have that information, depending on the situation, you can suggest viewing this course as an opportunity to deal with people who are intimidating (that worked very well for me once in the past--the student decided to rise to the challenge, and while she never liked the professor in question, had a higher degree of self-efficacy afterwards about dealing with difficult people). In other cases, the student should go directly to the department chair (or the dean if the person in question _is_ the department chair!) if the professor's behavior is out of line and there might be a need for some kind of intervention.
Probably it's safest in most cases to send that student to the department chair, anyway, to get another opinion at the very least. One pitfall in this sort of situation is that it is flattering to us to be seen as popular teachers who are sought-after by students, so we may want to ride to the rescue in a situation where that student could learn some very valuable lessons by staying where he/she is.
Esther
At 12:00 AM 1/30/03 -0500, Teaching in the Psychological Sciences digest wrote:
A student came to me with a request that he wants to transfer to my intro section.It is too late for him to add /drop.He wants to drop another prof'S section. He thinks that I should discuss with the other instructor the possibility of attending my class butI would advice the other instructor of the course grade. Should I do this? Michael Sylvester
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