With the development of society and the changing of students’ conditions, the teaching of structural mechanics is faced with unprecedented challenges. Aiming at the teaching problems of paying more attention to conformity than difference and paying more attention to independence than collaboration, a “wake-up” teaching idea is proposed. Based on the course characteristics of originating from engineering and feeding back to engineering of structural mechanics, the “wake-up” teaching idea takes engineering cases as the core, and takes the four steps of exciting-enlightening-extending-exploring as the principal line. Based on the teaching idea, a new educational mode of multi-elements collaborative differentiated teaching is explored, in which differentiation of students is precisely analyzed before class, diversified and high-quality teaching resources are constructed, online and offline multi-dimensional classrooms are integrated in an organized way, and a variety of in-class and out-class practice platforms are deeply expanded. The teaching practice shows that the teaching reform can not only wake up learning interest, participation consciousness, inner drive, and professional emotion, but also integrate mechanical theory, engineering practice, frontier of scientific research, and ideological and political education effectively, so the cultivation quality of civil engineering talents can be effectively guaranteed. It provides experience and reference for the teaching quality improvement of structural mechanics and the construction of new forms of classroom.