Abstract: This paper puts forward the idea of reform of the course contents of the soil settlement, from the angle of the degree of consolidation of soil, to the calculation of the final settlement, and finally to different test methods and compressibility indexes. The new teaching idea makes a reasonable distinction between the basic theory of the soil mechanics and the practical application of the soil mechanics, which can not only guarantee the purity and the rationality of the basic theory, but also meet the challenge of the further development and enrichment of the theory due to the complexity of soil in practice.