Operant Conditioning is changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. There are three kinds: neutral, reinforcers, and punishers.
Application: Operant Conditioning could come up in community development work if you were working with a marginalized population. Marginalized populations are constantly given punishers, discouraging them from trying a behavior again. For instance, many African Americans were punished for exercising the right to vote, some even dying for it. This discouraged voting in the African American community for a while, but eventually activists in the community reinforced the behavior of voting by fighting for the end of Jim Crow laws.
Adaption: operant conditioning can be applied to teaching. When teaching a difficult concept, a teacher could reinforce curiosity and initiative by rewarding students as they grasped the concepts, encouraging that kind of behavior in the future.
McLeod, S. (2007). Skinner, Operant Conditioning. retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
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