In addition, I will meet with you individually for one session during each exam period, and for roughly the last third of the semester, I will meet weekly with you in small groups (about 5 people), both to help you make progress on your research projects and to deal with whatever other difficulties may arise. During this period, the weekly meeting will take the place of one class per week (which will be canceled). You will have a great deal of opportunity to gain from my perception of your work.

That's fine,... but what about grades?
Grading is something different from feedback. It is an attempt to shoehorn into very few categories what is a diverse set of experiences. Individually tailored feedback can address the diversity. Grading cannot.

But there is a much bigger issue. The objectives of this course are focused on helping you gain intellectual independence and become producers rather than consumers of knowledge and ideas. You presumably accept these objectives, or there's little sense in your participating in the course. But grades, particularly as commonly implemented at VCU, work against these objectives. Strongly tied to independence is the notion of intrinsic motivation, the idea of doing something because you think it's right, as opposed to extrinsic motivation, doing something because it is presented to you as a desirable choice. An emphasis on A-F grading has been reported to promote viewing grades as the goal rather than learning or , compared to P/F grading [reference 1], and grading has been shown to undermine the development of intrinsic motivation, which, in contrast, is fostered by nongraded feedback [reference 2-5]. Ironically, though both students and professors give lip service to the notion that learning, not grades, is the higher goal of education, each blames the other for forcing their attention towards grades at the expense of learning [reference 6]. If the ill effects of grades were limited to the four years of college, it would be bad enough, but:

Students are released from grading pressures upon graduation, but the effects of reactance to learning may last a lifetime. The cost of using grades to induce learning may result in college graduates who seldom learn intellectually challenging material just for the fun of it, and "learning not to learn" may become the most long-lasting lesson of a college education.
        - Howard Pollio and Hall Beck [reference 5]

However, I will notify you the moment the thought crosses my mind that you are heading for an ultimate failing grade. If you are not notified, then you have never handed anything in to me that would cause such concern.

Then in the end there will be grades... How?
Yes, at the end of the semester, the beast must be fed. It is against my nature to do any task, even the most trivial, in an arbitrary fashion, so whatever grade emerges will be based somehow on my perceptions gathered over the semester, particularly from my observation of what you became able to do by the end with respect to the course objectives.

I will consider two routes to a passing grade:

• Significant progress towards scientific independence
  From the material I get from you (as described below), I judge that you have made good progress towards defining and addressing problems within the realm of bioinformatics.
   
• Movement towards scientific independence, coupled with significant effort towards that goal
  I detect slow but definite progress in defining and addressing problems within the realm of bioinformatics, and I discern through a pattern of sustained effort you have shown that there is good reason to expect future gains.

Let's consider the various material that could go into an assessment at the end of the semester:

How will I know where I stand in class?
Considering the detailed feedback you will get for every exam and whatever else you hand in, you should gain a pretty good idea of my views. Your time, like mine, would be better spent worrying less about where you stand on an arbitrary five-level scale and worrying more about how to get to where you would like to stand in your life.

Why so... different from everyone else?
It's possible, perhaps likely, that most classes you've taken here and elsewhere have not embraced the same philosophy concerning grading, but what I have described is actually a viewpoint that many hold besides myself (see references at the end of this page).

Academics can believe what they want. The outside world believes in grades. Certainly medical schools...
I know that's what many of you believe, and it is indeed true that medical school applicants need a decent GPA to get through the door. Medical schools have so many applicants relative to the number of positions (and I suspect relative to the number of people looking at the applications) that they have little choice but to reduce you to a number, at least for the first pass. Ditto for dental school and perhaps some other professional schools.

...but if you're interested in research, this is not the case. The number taking that route is small enough that real people can look at your application and judge as best they can your real talents. From my own experience and the experience of students I have known, I can tell you that research experience and scientific maturity count for much more than grades.

Some of your colleagues left BNFO 301 with different views, and some did not. You can read their opinions here.

In the end, however, you're going to have to decide for yourself why you (or someone) paid the thousands of dollars to go to VCU. Was it to gain a number or to learn something important, whatever you judge that to be?

1. Dahlgren LO, Fejes A, Abrandt-Dahlgren M, Trowald N (2009). Grading systems, features of assessment and students' approaches to learning. Teaching Higher Educ 14:185-194
    
2. Butler R, Nisan M (1986). Effects of no feedback, task-related comments, and grades on intrinsic motivation and performance. J Educ Psychol 78:210-216.
    
3. Kohn A (1994). Grading: The issue is not how but why. Educational Leadership 52:38-41.
    
4. Harlen W, Crick RD (2003). Testing and motivation for learning. Assessment in Education 10:169-207.
    
5. Pulfrey C, Buchs C, Butera F (2011). Why Grades Engender Performance-Avoidance Goals: The Mediating Role of Autonomous Motivation. J Educ Psychol 103:683-700.
    
6. Pollio H, Beck H (2000). When the tail wags the dog: Perceptions of learning and grade orientation in, and by, contemporary college students and faculty. J Higher Educ 71:84-102.