Abstract: Based on the heat transfer course characteristics of difficult teaching and difficult learning and the existing problems in the traditional teaching mode, this paper explores the teaching of heat transfer under the guidance of self-organization theory. The self-organization theory mainly researches on how the system becomes orderly from the state of disorder. This is very helpful to improve the teaching effect. Heat transfer teaching system has the self-organizing characteristics. Through the analysis of the self-organizing characteristics of heat transfer teaching, this paper expounds the application of the theory of self-organization of openness, far from equilibrium, nonlinear and fluctuation characteristics. Self-organization theory can improve the level of teaching, cultivate students' innovative thinking, and promote heat transfer teaching system to develop in the direction of harmony and senior.