The experiential learning method aligns well for a design thinking course. While many studies advocate the benefits of how experience influences the learning process, there are also critiques that argue the complexity of experiences with uncontrolled environment. In a course design with experiential learning, the learning activities have to be designed to maximize learning effectiveness of the participants. One design challenge is the duration of these learning activities for experiential learning. These learning activities take up time and effort for teachers to design and student to perform. Proper design of the number and type of activities based on their effectiveness in achieving their learning outcome is required. Another design challenge is the minimum instructional guidance of these learning activities which potentially impact the learning effectiveness of novice students. In this paper, we describe our experiences and findings of applying experiential learning method in a design thinking course with a list of learning activities performed iteratively. Each of the learning activity varies in their duration required and level of instructional guidance. Our survey seeks to find out which of the learning activities are effective for the students to achieve their learning outcomes and how does the level of instructional guidance and duration required in these learning activities affect them. The survey involves 104 undergraduate Information Systems students who have performed these learning activities. Our survey results show that there is only weak correlation between the level of instructional guidance or the activity duration to their learning effectiveness. However, the results show the students prefer certain learning activities, fewer iterations and more time to focus on the learning activities within each iteration. We will also discuss other factors that impact their learning effectiveness such as the complexity of these learning activities and the instructor's teaching style. We hope that these insights can help course designers to better design the learning activities in their design thinking courses.