Critical thinking ability is an important part of the training program of new engineering talents. Traditional teaching mode of the course of composite structures focuses on knowledge transfer and this mode limits students to passive learning—"blind acceptance and imitation" and "cramming". This is contrary to the educational ideology of civil engineering education certification at undergraduate level. Based on the teaching content of composite structures, this paper conducts an action research on the mechanism of improving the critical thinking ability of undergraduate students majoring in civil engineering from the aspects of teaching design, teaching method and learning performance evaluation. The teaching contents are selected from the practical problems encountered in the course of composite structures. We analyze, evaluate and reflect upon the teaching and learning process in the form of learning community. From the perspective of simulating practical engineering application, to analyze learning performance evaluation, comparative teaching method is used in classroom teaching to guide and train students to identify, analyze, evaluate and predict engineering problems holistically, which is an effective way to improve the comprehensive quality of undergraduate students in civil engineering.