Animal experiment courses are important for developing students’ practical skills in medical and life science education. They help to cultivate students’ experimental skills, scientific reasoning, and innovative thinking ability. However, the traditional teaching method used in animal experiment courses tend to focus on a single topic and have minimal student participation. Courses should aim to promote students’ active learning and innovative thinking abilities, and this paper discusses the ways teaching in animal experiment courses can be reformed. First, the paper introduces the background and significance of teaching in animal experiment courses and emphasizes the importance of cultivating the students’ abilities. Second, it puts forward the principles of improved animal experiment course teaching, including designing student-centered lessons, providing opportunities for problem solving and practical exploration, and promoting interdisciplinary integration. At the same time, we integrate an ethical review of the welfare of experimental animals in China. Then, from the aspects of course design, teaching method, and evaluation method, this paper expounds several concrete measures of teaching reform in animal experiment courses in detail. When designing a course, attention should be paid to the selection of challenging and exploratory experimental projects, and students ’ interests and professional needs should be fully considered. Using improved teaching method, students should be encouraged to actively participate in explorative and cooperative classes, be guided through problem solving tasks, and encouraged to cultivate innovative thinking. Diversified evaluation method, such as experimental reports, group discussions, and project presentations, should be used to comprehensively evaluate students’ practical and innovative thinking abilities. Finally,with practical verification and effect evaluation, the experiences and outcomes from a reform of animal experiment course teaching are summarized, and suggestions for further improvements are put forward.