This paper analyzes the teaching content and teaching status of the course of principles of engineering structural design. Teaching methods are designed and adjusted based on the cone of learning theory and the characteristics of attention curve of students. In the attention distraction period of the class time, the method of pop-up questions during teaching sections is adopted. The pop-up questions on the screen can arouse the excitement of the students and stimulate their learning enthusiasm and learning motivation. Students participation and learning interest are stimulated through the approaches such as "cosplay", programming, and flow chart compiling. A preliminary attempt to "flipped classroom" is carried out, and some experience and conclusions are obtained.