Practical teaching is the main carrier of training applied talents. It is necessary to study its design because it will directly affect the quality of talent training. In this paper, the problems existing in the transformation and development of local undergraduate universities were analyzed and discussed, for example the practical teaching was subordinated to the theory teaching, the practical teaching was not concentrated, and the time of students practice training and participation in engineering practice was lacked. Combined with the standards of engineering education certification, the practical teaching system throughout 8 semesters and 4 academic years was constructed, with students practical ability as the core and ability increment as the goal. The dominant position of practical teaching was effectively guaranteed through the reform of talent training mode, the construction of dual-teacher faculty, the innovation of school-enterprise cooperation mechanism and the evaluation of goal achievement. The research results can accelerate the integration between the goal of training applied talents and the construction of curriculum system, and comprehensively improve the economic and social development of the professional service region, which is a beneficial attempt to reform the practical teaching mode of surveying and mapping engineering.