Experimental teaching is an important part of teaching work in colleges and universities. It is a bridge of communication between theory and practice. To improve the quality of experimental teaching and to cultivate innovative talents with high scientific research qualities, strong innovative spirits and practice abilities, two specific methods for the reform of geotechnical experimental teaching were proposed. The first method is to demand students to conduct research-oriented preview and then design and submit spreadsheets for the geotechnical experiments. The second method is to carry out numerical simulations for some geotechnical experiments and to analyze the influence factors on the experimental process. Through this teaching reform, the quality of preview and the experimental teaching can be improved and the combination between theory and practice can be promoted. Students can understand the experiment process, phenomenon and influence factors more clearly and they can learn to analyze problems deeply. This teaching reform helps to cultivate high-quality talents with solid theoretical foundation, strong engineering practice abilities and innovative abilities.