Lethal Mutations: When Good Ideas Lose Their Purpose (Free Guest Webinar with Dr Haili Hughes)
Good ideas in education don’t always stay good. As evidence-informed practices spread through schools, they can become simplified, standardised or distorted until the original purpose gets lost. These are lethal mutations: practices that may still look right on the surface, but no longer work in the way they were intended.
In this free 45-minute guest webinar, Dr Haili Hughes explores how and why lethal mutations happen — and, importantly, what teachers and school leaders can do to prevent them.
Haili is Associate Professor at La Trobe University and an experienced teacher, leader, researcher and author. In this special DistillED guest session, she brings a critical but practical lens to the growing use of cognitive science and evidence-informed practice in schools.
Drawing on research and examples from classroom practice, Haili will unpack common mutations of evidence-informed approaches before exploring how we can move towards principled adaptation: adapting practices intelligently without losing the mechanisms that make them effective.
📘 EXCLUSIVE HANDBOOK: Everyone who stays until the end will receive the new DistillED Lethal Mutations Handbook — a practical guide to recognising common mutations, understanding why they happen, and keeping evidence-informed practice connected to its original purpose.
💻 Can’t attend live? A recording of the webinar will be available afterwards in the DistillED+ Hub for DistillED+ members. If you’re not yet a member, you can explore the upgrade options here: