I don't know if this will really help or apply to the situation, but here's my two cents as an actor who has appeared in several Shakespeare plays and as an English major...
The best way to learn about Shakespeare and to deeply aprpeciate his works is to act in and produce one of the plays. I learned more from playing a bit part in Macbeth one summer than I did reading the play in my college Shakespeare class. Plus, I got to die on stage in a sword fight, which was cool.
I think the ideal experience would be a class in which, in a single semester, the entire class would pruduce exactly one of his plays. Students would do everything necessary to put the play on. If you had more students than roles (both on-stage and off-stage roles, e.g. stage manager) then you could have understudies/double casting of parts. The time spent immersed in one play leads one invariably to appreciate the subtleties of Shakespeare's genius and incites a self-fueling interest to investigate his other works.
An acceptable compromise might be to produce scenes from the plays, but I think that lacks the sense of accomplishment that comes with tackling a whole play.
