Equipment foundation of biological engineering is a professional course combining the design theory and practice of equipment. It contains a large amount of professional information, calculation example and practice experiences, which makes it difficult to teach for the teachers and learn for the students being lack of visible cognition and practical experiences. In order to urge students to study and master the process of industrial production and the design and selection of the related equipment in a limited teaching time, combining our teaching experience and research experience, reform of the teaching model, teaching contents, teaching methods and examination form has been implemented, and the results showed that the teaching effectiveness of this teaching model on urging students to learn by themselves has been improved significantly.