For operant, think of reward/punishment. For classical, just think of pairing a new action to a fixed stimulus. I'll provide two examples. For classical, think of Pavlov's dog. Dog's salivate when they see T-bone steak (so do I haha). Now, an scientist presents the steak while ringing a bell at the same time. After repeated trials, the dog eventually salivates on just hearing the bell alone. For operant, take a woodpecker in a cage with two posts....blue and white. Naturally the woodpecker could choose either post equally, but an electrode hooked up to the blue post presents a shock every time the bird pecks the blue post.......after a few painful pecks, the bird no longer pecks the blue post. Similarly, every time the white post is pecked, a reward is administered.........after a while, the bird will always peck the white post. This is operant. Hope this helps.
