Model making is an important way to cultivate practical ability of civil engineering professionals, and it is also a basic way of civil engineering practice teaching. It effectively promotes students to transform planar design thinking into three-dimensional design thinking. The teaching mode of the model making course adheres to the four-in-one teaching principle, which organically combines the four aspects of classroom teaching, team seminars, computer operation and model making. This paper analyzes the problems existing in the teaching mode of architectural model making courses and explores the countermeasures, aiming to make a beneficial attempt for the practical teaching of civil engineering and the cultivation of compound civil engineering talents.