Griendling teaching in the Indoor Flight Lab
Lecturer uses fail-fast philosophy to keep her courses engaging.
AE Lecturer Kelly Griendling, AE 2006, M.S. AE 2008, Ph.D. AE 2011, is the first recipient of the C. Virgil Smith Faculty Teaching Award and will receive $3,800 for her classroom. The award supports AE faculty who primarily teach at the undergraduate level and have shown extraordinary encouragement and support to students. It will be given annually at the discretion of the AE Chair.
“Kelly exemplifies the spirit of this award through her expertise, unwavering dedication, and innovative teaching style,” AE Chair Mitchell Walker shared. “Her commitment inspires and transforms her students, making her a great example of the type of faculty in AE.”
Griendling, who has been teaching since 2013, has received numerous teaching awards. In 2021, she received the Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 CIOS Honor Roll. The next year, she was honored with the College of Engineering Women in Engineering Faculty Teaching Award, and in 2023, she received the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace
I'm passionate about teaching and really pour a lot into it. So being recognized by my colleagues, who I respect a lot, is special and an honor.
Kelly Griendling
The Triple Yellow Jacket plans each course with the student experience at the forefront. She wants them engaged and eager to learn instead of feeling like it’s a chore. She tries to bring curiosity and wonder back to the classroom. She asks herself what she wants the students to walk away with from the course and then figures out how she can best make it happen.
To achieve her classroom goals and overcome challenges, she uses the fail-fast philosophy, a term often used by start-up companies. The objective is to try the idea at the lowest bar possible to determine its merit. If the classroom innovation has merit, she keeps working on it and investing in it, but if it fails or doesn’t meet expectations, she pivots and does something else. She remains flexible. She has no problem admitting when things aren’t working and trying something new.
“Whether it's helping high schoolers build fully functioning rovers, or teaching undergraduates the dreaded topic of control theory, Dr. Griendling is one of the most passionate and capable STEM educators I have met as a Georgia Tech student,” said Devin Kelsey. “Her exceptional ability to approach difficult topics from intuitive directions makes the seemingly impossible become familiar, easy, and even fun.”
Teaching extends beyond the classroom. Griendling, also the K-12 outreach lead for AE and the Georgia Space Grant Consortium, oversees a robust outreach program that thrusts her undergraduate and graduate volunteers into teaching and mentoring K-12 students around Georgia. This engagement helps Georgia Tech undergraduate students gain a deeper understanding of aerospace as they build rovers and drones and assist the next generation.
Griendling in AE Flight Simulation Lab
An anonymous donor set up the fund to honor the extraordinary teaching ability of C. Virgil Smith, CE 1958, who taught at Georgia Tech for over 30 years. His students flourished under his encouragement and teaching, and he knew each of their names. He is also credited for remembering detailed explanations of where students errored on his incredibly difficult quizzes. When it came to assessment, he reviewed answers for thought processes and gave generous partial credit when the process was correct. He believed that learning to think was a skill that would serve students well beyond the structures' applications.
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