Popular music education has its importance to focus on the inspiration of creativity because creativity is a key ability for both students and business industries. The author conducts a case study using the subject of “Marketing and Planning for Music Programs”for third-year college students in the Department of Popular Music at a university of technology aiming to address the creativity cultivation strategy in the process of teaching practice. The course is offered in 2021 with 54 students enrolled. and the course design is applied the 4P’s creativity model (i.e., person, process, press, product) as a foundation with different learning topics such as singer positioning, music productions, singing skills, etc. The synthesized teaching model is addressed as follows:

1. Person-related approach: According to students’ different characteristics, this study firstly conducts a heterogeneous grouping aiming to foster students’ discussions and collaborations. The second step is to guide students to understand the strengths and characteristics of being a signer so that to find a singer’s unique position. In terms of teaching singing skills, this course not only teaches common basic skills but also emphasizes emotional expressions in order to support different individuals with different characteristics.

2. Process-related approach: This approach includes both individuals’ creative thinking processes and collaborative learning procedures. From an individual level, the course allows students to have the opportunity to experience the creative process of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. From a collaboration level, the course supports students to discuss, share, and brainstorm ideas, and then allows students to work together and complete project work. The collaboration provides students experiences on project-based learning and co-design processes with team members.

3. Press-related approach: For the learning topic of music productions, this subject also emphasizes the impacts of regional cultural context on music styles.

4. Product-related approach: Students in each group have to submit a brand-new single at the end of the semester. The reviewers evaluate the work according to three criteria: a) innovation, b) value, and c) potential for release to the market. The reviewers include the author of the study and a composer, Jing Peng, who has received the Golden Bell Awards. These two reviewers have experience in industrial practices for many years so that they have the ability to put students’ work into the real market context for testing and this evaluation type reveals the core spirit of authentic assessment.

　　This course is conducted for one semester to observe the changes in students’ work performances and the study finds that students’ creativity is increased. After the course, a survey questionnaire is collected for students’ learning experiences and feedback. Results show that 75.6% to 88.9% of students perceive that the course contents, methods, and learning processes enhance their abilities of innovation and creativity.

Keywords: Popular Music, Creativity, Teaching Practice, Authentic Assessment