Since trade schools focus on applied knowledge and functional skill rather than theoretical knowledge, the teachers are not necessarily research-active like university professors are. Rather, trade school teachers tend to have industry experience, and are therefore better-equipped to teach hands-on skills based on their own knowledge.
Trade schools also have a great deal of contact time, with courses often resembling full-time jobs in terms of how much class participation is expected of students. This is another difference between trade schools and universities. Universities have less class time and more independent work to foster the ability to work independently (but at the cost of not teaching as many uniform, applied skills). Trade schools require more class time because they are teaching hands-on skills, which cannot really be independently taught.
While trade schools do have a lot of contact time, this is not always in classrooms like traditional education. Rather, it tends to be a combination of classroom teaching (which does involve some theoretical work) and hands-on learning in a work environment. This lets potential employers teach trade school students the precise skills they need to learn and also lets the students learn in the setting they will be working in after graduation.
Trade schools have subjects like carpentry, landscape design, manufacturing, electrical work and a number of other courses. There are also subjects that bridge the gap between trade school and standard university, such as nursing and business, which are available at both institutions because different skill levels can be taught. A nurse, for example, can get an associate's degree at a trade school in two years or a bachelor's degree at a university in four years. Both qualify the student as a nurse, but the latter gives more higher-level opportunities and promotion potential -- at the cost of two years and substantially higher tuition.